The Doctor and his Patient
by Sweet Little Darling
Summary: AU. All Human. Dr. Elijah Mikaelson meets the feisty, headstrong fashion editor Katherine Pierce when she comes to the hospital with a broken wrist and a dislocated shoulder. They are both stubborn. They both come from broken families. They both have a hard time falling in love. Yet they begin feeling attracted to each other. Kalijah.
1. Chapter 1

**1**

Twenty five year old Katherine Pierce tugged back a brown curl behind her diamond studded ear as she glance at herself in the hall mirror that was located near the staircase of the small townhouse, her grandmother Eloise Pierce had given to her when she graduated from college. It was squeezed between two other small townhouses, near 56th and 57th street on the Upper West Side.

Even though she had been living in the town house for three years now, at times it still felt like living at a hotel, Katherine was grateful that it wasn't any bigger. It had a small kitchen, a living room, a personal office, and two bedrooms. She lived alone with only a small kitty named, Marie for company.

Katherine was the fashion editor, at _Ruby Red_ magazine that specialized in advice columns, celebrity gossip, and beauty tricks but its main subject were the latest fashion and trends, something that Katherine had been an expert in ever since she had been allowed to pick her own clothes when she was seven. Even the editor in chief, Rebekah Mikaelson had been impressed with the fact that Katherine had managed an editorial position at such a young age, but like Rebekah had pointed out Katherine was tough, fearless, and didn't take no for an answer, just what the magazine industry needed.

Her grandmother, Eloise had been disappointed which her choice of career, but Katherine hadn't listen. She loved her grandmother, but the two of them often bumped heads especially since they were both equally stubborn.

It didn't help that Eloise had very few family members left. Katherine's parents had died when she was fifteen in a car accident and her twin sister, Elena had committed suicide the year before leaving Eloise with her least favorite granddaughter and taking care of her great granddaughter and Katherine's niece Emma. Emma was Elena's daughter and she was only seven years old and under Eloise's care since Katherine worked too much and she wasn't ready for a child. But Emma seemed happy and Katherine spend as much time together with her as she could.

Katherine checked her reflection in the mirror once again making sure that her glossy curls were made in a perfect up do. Her eyelashes were dark with mascara and her lips were painted a deep red. She was wearing a short, black dress that had gotten her many free drinks in several occasion over a black coat.

She checked her phone. 8:47P.M. she was supposed to meet the pop star Sophie Deveraux for drinks at nine at a nearby hotel and longue to discuss the clothes she would be wearing for next week's photo-shoot.

She grabbed her phone and began walking down the stairs at the same time while checking her email. She felt her foot wobble in her high heels and before she could even blink she felt herself tumbling down to the floor.

She let out a cry of pain when she finally reached downstairs. "Shit! Shit!" she whimpered. Her legs felt fine, but her shoulder and left arm were throbbing. Crap, she must have dislocated it, or worse broken it. She managed to call her friend, Caroline Forbes despite the pain.

"Hello?" Caroline chirpily answer at the other end. Katherine wondered how she stayed so chirper, especially when she worked all day with noisy little kids as a preschool teacher.

"Caroline, I need you to come to my house now." Damn it, the pain was really starting to become worse.

"Huh? What's wrong? I thought you were meeting Sophie."

"I'll explain later," she tried not to snap. "Just come."

* * *

"Did you call Sophie to reschedule and apologize?"

"Yes."

"Did you lock the doors of my house?"

"Yes."

"Did you close the windows, otherwise Marie gets out and starts mewing at three in the morning so that I can let her in."

"For God's sakes, Katherine yes I did everything in your little to do list that you have in your head," Caroline informed her friend as she helped guide her way through the emergency room at St. Joseph's hospital half an hour later. "Now can you please focus of your arm and shoulder? Does it hurt?"

"Of course it hurts!" she cried out. "I fell down the stairs."

Caroline rolled her blue eyes. "It's your own fault, I told you, and you need to stop wearing such high heels."

Katherine lifted her chin. "Not going to happen."

Caroline sighed as she murmured. "You're so stubborn." She smiled at the nurse behind the desk. "Hi, I'm Caroline my friend here had a little accident we think she might have a dislocated shoulder-"

"Fill out these forms." The nurse interrupted her impatiently. "A doctor will be with you soon."

Katherine gritted her teeth as she slammed her right hand on the desk. "Listen, lady you're not getting it I just fell down the stairs and my arm feels like it's going to fall off."

Caroline chuckled nervously as she pulled Katherine away. "Forgive my friend, she's just a little agitated. Come on Katherine, I'll help you fill out your forms."

* * *

"What's taking them so long?" Katherine said impatiently. After they had filled out the forms they had instructed her to wait in a small waiting room for the doctor after they had done the x-rays. Normally non family members weren't allowed, but Katherine had bullied them into letting Caroline in. She would rather have her than Eloise who would probably be scolding her all night for being stupid enough to fall on her own two feet.

"I'm sure it won't be long now," Caroline glance at the clock, it was after ten. She had to get up early for preschool tomorrow or perhaps she could call in sick if Katherine needed help getting around. But God, who was she kidding even though she and Katherine had been best friends since kindergarten the woman barely asked for help unless it was a life and death situation, she would probably insist on going to work tomorrow like today never happened. "Are the pain killers working?"

Katherine bit her lip nervously. "I'm sorry Care. I'm acting like a brat aren't I?"

Before she could respond a handsome, dark hair doctor in his early thirties enter the room. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Pierce. I'm Dr. Elijah Mikaelson."

"About time." Katherine huffed impatiently. "Not to be rude, but can you hurry it up a bit, doc I'm kind of low on time here. I had to wait in the waiting room for almost an hour because the nurses were too busy cooing over the top ten celebrity weddings. So excuse me, if I have a bit of a temper."

"Katherine," Caroline scolded.

Elijah chuckled as he checked her chart. "Straight to the point. I like it," he glance at Caroline. "And you are Miss Pierce's sister?"

"No friend," she corrected.

Elijah nodded as he turned back to Katherine. "You have a dislocated shoulder, that we can take care off easily and a broken wrist. We will have to put it in a cast to help heal it and for the swelling to go down. If you don't mind my asking how did the accident occur?"

Katherine flushed bright red and murmured. "I fell down the stairs."

Elijah looked like her wanted to burst out laughing, but he hid it with a cough. "Well, how about we take care of that dislocated shoulder right now?" he walked towards her and gently placed both hands on either side of her shoulder. "I'm going to put it back into place, it's going to hurt I'm afraid."

Before Katherine could react she heard a snap and Katherine let out a low whine.

"You can cry." Elijah told her as if she were being stupid for trying to keep the tears in.

"I'm not crying!" she snapped back. The only person she had cried in front of was Caroline and there was no way she was going to cry in front of people she didn't even knew.

Elijah inspected her wrist which was swollen and purple. "You're going to be wearing a cast up to your elbow for a few weeks-"

"Excuse me, what?" Katherine interrupted hotly. "A cast? I can't wear a cast, I'm a fashion editor I need both of my hands! Can't you just give me pills or inject me with something, because I'm certainly not wearing a stupid cast."

An amused smile spread on Elijah's lips. "I'm sorry, you can't?"

"Katherine, be reasonable."

Katherine ignored her. "Look everyone has a price, what will be yours? I give you a couple of Benjamin Franklin's you sign me off and we both go back to our lovely lives."

Elijah finally lost the amusement, instead he looked angry. "Are you trying to bribe me, Miss Pierce?"

"No," she said sweetly. "I just want to get out of here and is sure as hell not going to be wearing a stupid cast."

Elijah's mouth tightened. "I think it is better that we keep you overnight, Miss Pierce you seem agitated . . . a little rest will do you good."

"I have a cat to look after!" she snapped.

"Kat, I'll take care of Marie," Caroline insisted. "If the doctor thinks you need to stay overnight. Then you should."

"You friend is right, Miss Pierce," Elijah couldn't help but say in a mocking tone.

Katherine's face was red with fury. "Fuck you, Dr. Mikaelson!"

Caroline blushed.

Elijah, however didn't even blink. "A nurse will be with you shortly, please try not to let out your anger on her, Miss Pierce."

Elijah exited the room and nodded hello to his coworker, Nurse Davina Claire. "Rough patient? Quite a yeller."

"I've never meet a young woman so stubborn and headstrong," Elijah chuckled. "Can you believe it that she told me to go fuck myself."

Davina's eyes widened. "What did you do?"

"I'm keeping her overnight," he admitted. "She seems to be one of those independent workaholics, I think she might have preferred having an arm amputated."

Davina chuckled. "You're an evil, evil man Elijah."

-End of Chapter One-


	2. Chapter 2

**2**

Elijah finished his shift a little after midnight and he was supposed to come in early tomorrow morning for a couple of appointments, he could already tell how tired he was going to be. He waved goodbye to two nurses before grabbing his keys and a cup of coffee and heading outside towards his car.

Against his better judgment he passed by room 221 and peeked through the window. He expected Katherine to be staring back at him angrily while probably planning his murder, but he was surprised by what he saw instead.

Katherine was fast asleep in the hospital bed that they had forced her to occupy. Her cell phone was on the night able along with a hundred of little post it notes. Without even thinking what he was doing he went into the room, Katherine just stirred but didn't wake up.

He looked at her cell phone that was on silent but already read-seven new messages and the post in notes were reminders of several meetings and fabric selections. Elijah remembered that when she had been screaming her head off that she was a fashion editor. He wondered for which magazine, he would have to ask his sister Rebekah.

Her face was slightly swollen and she was already sprouting a brand new black cast. Davina had told her that they had put her on heavy pain medication for her wrist and shoulder.

Elijah cocked his head to the side, surprise at himself for showing such interest in a patient, maybe it was her attitude that made her unforgettable. He pushed back a stray curl from her face.

Katherine grabbed his hand, unexpectedly even though her eyes were still close. "I love you . . . please don't leave me." She mumbled.

It's probably the drugs taking their toll, Elijah though. He was used to groggy patients that said things that they didn't mean or started laughing hysterically.

Elijah lowered her hand gently back on the bed and quietly exited the room. He would deal with her in the morning.

* * *

When Katherine woke up in the morning, she was cranky to say the least. It didn't help that Caroline had left a message for her and told her that she wouldn't be able to pick her up and instead she was sending Katherine's grandmother, Eloise of all people to pick her up. The horror.

Katherine briefly wondered if she couldn't just walk home, or even crawling was more acceptable than being picked up by Eloise like a three year old, but she was so groggy from the pain medication that she could barely stand and there was no way that she could drive with a broken wrist. She thought about calling a taxi, but Eloise was probably already on her away.

Even though Eloise had been living in New York for more than twenty years the noise still freaked her out and she would go outside clutching her purse convince that she would be robbed. The only time she went outside was to go to the salon or to play bridge, she even sent a nanny to take and pick Emma up from school.

The nurse, Davina had helped her shower and dress in a track suit, not the most fashionable, but definitely comfortable. She had tied her hair in a ponytail clumsily with one hand and now she was checking her messages.

There was a knock on the door and Elijah stepped into the room. "How are you feeling?"

"Good." She tried to hide the tiredness in her voice. "I told you I didn't need be hospitalize."

"I wouldn't have had too, if you hadn't made such a scene." He teased her lightly.

Before Katherine could curse him out she heard a little voice.

"Aunt Katherine!" a seven year old little girl with dark brown hair and big blue eyes jumped into her lap. In her hand she was holding a handmade card and a get well soon teddy bear. "You're all better!"

Katherine immediately softened as she returned the hug. "Hi, Emma. Yes, sweetie I'm all better."

Emma breathlessly handed Katherine the picture and teddy bear. "This is for you." She turned to Elijah and smiled. "Hi. I'm Emma Salvatore I'm seven years old."

"Hello," Elijah greeted her. "She's your niece?"

She nodded. "My sister's daughter. Emma, why aren't you in school?"

"I wanted to come see you." Emma said.

"Katherine, I honestly couldn't believe when you friend Cassie told me that you were hospitalize all for walking in those ridiculous heels of yours." A tall, slim woman in her seventies entered the room with a cane. "And all because you insist on wearing those ridiculous heels."

Great. Not even five minutes and already she wanted to strangle her. "Grandmother, it's Caroline for one and it was a freak accident it happens sometimes." Eloise didn't look like she believe her so she decided to change the subject. "Grandma, this is Dr. Elijah Mikaelson, Dr. Mikaelson this is my grandmother, Eloise Pierce."

Eloise and Elijah shook hands. "Thank you for taking care of my granddaughter, I hope she wasn't too much trouble, she can be as stubborn as a mule when she wants too."

Elijah smirked at her.

Katherine glared at him with a look that said be quiet or else.

"I'll give the papers to the nurse to discharge you," Elijah said. "You just need to sign out at the front desk. Feel better, Miss Piece and if you need anything else please call me. We'll take your cast off in six weeks. Try not to work too much."

"You would have an easier time teaching frogs how to sing, Dr. Mikaelson." Eloise said.

Elijah chuckled.

Katherine nodded. "Thank you, Dr. Mikaelson and I'm sorry about . . . yesterday."

Elijah smiled. "No problem. You really made my night exciting. Good morning and good luck."

Elijah had barely stepped out when Eloise turned to her granddaughter. "Is that handsome doctor your boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend!" she hissed, hoping that Elijah hadn't heard that (He was in fact hearing every word.). "God, why do you think every man I talk to is my boyfriend? He's an ass."

Eloise scoffed. "You're never going to get a man with that attitude."

"I don't want a man, I can take care of myself perfectly!"

"Yes, that's why I had to pick you up."

"I didn't ask you too, Caroline did."

"You haven't changed since you were little. You want to take care of everything by yourself."

"Is that a bad thing?"

They continued arguing all the way to the exit with Emma following behind them, apparently already used to the arguing.

Elijah held back a small laugh as he checked the clipboard of his next patient. He raised his head when Davina spoke to him. "Quite a family I can see why you're laughing."

"It's rude to laugh I know, especially when my family aren't exactly angels," Elijah said. "But their bickering is hilarious."

Davina glance at him with a knowing smile. "So did you ask for her number?"

Elijah raised an eyebrow. "Who's number?"

Davina rolled her eyes. "Katherine's." she gave a mischievous smile. "Don't pretend, Elijah I saw how you were checking her out and I never seen you so worried about a patient before."

"I'm a doctor I worry about all my patients." He protested. "Besides a woman like that will eat me alive."

Davina took the clipboard from him. "Fine, whatever you're going to regret it."

-End of Chapter Two-

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	3. Chapter 3

**3**

Katherine Pierce was sure that those six weeks that she would be force to wear that stupid cast would be worse that hell. How was she supposed to manage her busy work life if one of her arms was basically worthless? She was just glad that it wasn't her writing arm.

But like everything that Katherine did, she got the hang of it after a few days, though she did curse at least once a day for her broken wrist and how she couldn't drink coffee and check her phone at the same time.

But she was handling it pretty well and her assistant, April Young was actually being helpful for a change. Usually her perkiness annoyed Katherine to no end, but now that she was practically an invalid she was actually a pretty decent help.

She answered Katherine's phone calls when she was busy. She helped arranged clothes for the next photo shoot and once or twice she had actually picked some pretty good pieces for the collection. Yes, April Young reminded Katherine of a mini me, the younger, eager version of herself.

Katherine adjusted the emerald colored blouse that the pop singer, Sophie was wearing for the photo shoot today. Usually, she would leave this to the assistants and she would go over the pictures that she liked. But Katherine actually liked Sophie and she was one of the few people that treated her decently when she had to do photo shoots like this. Sophie was down to earth, which was rare in pop stairs.

"Thanks," Sophie said never stopping chewing her gum that matched her perfect pink lips. "Cute top, whenever I go to the store I can never find anything I like."

"Honey, next time you have a problem, come straight to moi," Katherine smirked as she adjusted the chain necklaces with one hand. "Those inexperience sales girl will talk you into buying something horrible trust me."

Sophie noticed the cast on her wrist. "Ouch. How did that happened?"

"Lousy accident and I'm clumsy."

"Touché."

"Well, at least I only have four more weeks left." She snapped her fingers and two stylists came to fix Sophie's hair and makeup.

Katherine watched the rest of the photo shoot from the corner of her eye while she texted Caroline.

**Kat**: Bad teacher, texting in school. What example are you setting for the children?

**Caroline:** Shut up, it's my lunch break. Are you still doing the Sophie photo shoot?

**Kat**: On set in Central Park right now.

**Caroline:** Can you pretty please get her autograph for me.

**Kat**: I'm not going to go all fan girl on her.

**Caroline**: Thanks, best friend. Next time call someone else to take you to the ER. Want to go for drinks tonight?

**Kat**: I'm officially becoming a nun until they take care of this stupid cast.

**Caroline**: Kat, no one is going to care.

**Katherine**: Well, I care.

"Katherine," Katherine turned around and came face to face with her boss and magazine editor of Ruby Red ( a position which she had inherited from her mother, Esther even though Katherine and Rebekah were almost the same age) Rebekah Mikaelson.

Rebekah didn't usually bothered going to the actual photo shoot and instead she just preferred to stay in her cozy office and pick everything that was going in the next issue. She was a pretty blond in her late twenties with long hair and icy blue eyes. She was dressed in tight black pants and a white coat.

She smiled at her. "How would you like to go out to dinner this evening?"

Katherine stared at her quizzically.

Even though she and Rebekah were friendly to each other, they never did anything buddy-buddy like, like going to dinner, they closest they had come to it had been coffee and cinnamon buns that one time the airport delayed flights because it was snowing too hard.

As if reading her mind, Rebekah continued. "My new boyfriend, Stefan Salvatore is coming to visit me tonight from Seattle," she said. "And I thought it would be good if I asked my brother to come along since Stefan really wants to meet him. I invited my friend Celeste, but she couldn't come and I really don't want my brother to feel like a third wheel, so I was wondering if you would like to come instead."

Wait, Stefan Salvatore. As in Damon Salvatore's younger brother the same Damon that had broken his sister's heart and dumped a kid on her? She really didn't want to go, but she saw the pleading on Rebekah's face. "Sure, I'll go."

Rebekah squealed as she gave her a hug. "Thanks, dinner at eight. I'll email you the directions."

* * *

"Dr. Mikaelson, phone!" Davina whacked him slightly on the back. Elijah smiled, he had to admit that of all the nurses Davina was definitely his favorite one and they had become good friends in a quick time.

"Nurse Davina, don't you have other patients to attend to?" Elijah asked with a raised eyebrow.

Davina began grabbing a couple of blood bags. "Well, I would have an easier time concentrating if the phone would stop ringing for five seconds." She put the blood bags in a little cart so that she could take them to cold storage. "By the way, it's your sister."

Elijah groaned. Great, when Rebekah wanted to talk to him there was no stopping her. The girl was like a tornado. Since he had left his cell phone at the staff room, Rebekah would have probably called 911 to get a hold of him if Davina hadn't answered.

He picked up the waiting phone from the nurse's desk. "Rebekah, how many times have I told you not to call me at work?"

"But this is important," Rebekah pouted. "And you weren't answering your phone."

"That's because I can't answer my phone little sister, because I'm supposed to actually take care of the patients and not ignored them." He replied sarcastically.

Rebekah rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever. Listen Stefan just called me, he's flying in tonight and he wants to have dinner. So you better get your ass to our favorite Italian restaurant tonight."

Elijah sighed. "I don't know Bekah-"

"Elijah, please!" she begged. "Stefan is really excited to meet you, and I already set you up with a lady friend."

"Excuse me?" he sounded annoyed. "A lady friend? I told you, I don't want to date anyone for a while, not after everything that happened with Hayley."

"Your relationship with Hayley was destroyed over a year ago, Elijah. Do us all a favor and get over it!"

Elijah didn't respond.

"Pretty please with a cheery on top?" she begged. "Please come and I'll love you forever."

Elijah closed his eyes. He could never say no to his little sister. "Fine, I'll be there."

-End of Chapter Three-


	4. Chapter 4

**4**

Katherine looked at herself in the mirror in her bedroom and frowned at what she was wearing. She could usually pick an outfit at the drop of a hat, but she had to admit that she was having trouble. She was already regretting agreeing to this, she knew it wasn't a date she was just meeting Rebekah's brother, but she knew Rebekah and Stefan will be too busy making googly eyes at each other to pay attention to them and she would like to know what kind of man he was if she was going to spend dinner with him.

She knew that Rebekah had two brothers older than her. Her first older brother was named Klaus and Katherine had only meet him once because he lived in Europe most of the time, she also knew she had another older brother, but Katherine didn't know his name or what his career was.

Well, there was no time like the present.

She frowned as she looked at her reflection. "Stupid cast." She looked perfect, if she did say so herself the only thing that was ruining the effect was the damn cast. She was wearing a black dress with a slightly puffy skirt, black tights, and black heels. She had clumsily managed to get her curls into a loose side bun and was just applying red lipstick when her cell phone rang with the directions for the restaurant. Great, it was only twenty minutes away.

"I'll be back soon, Marie." She cooed at her white kitten who purred from the loveseat. She locked the door of her house when she heard her name being called out.

"Aunt Katherine! Aunt Katherine!"

She turned around and saw Emma skipping towards her dressed in her ballet clothes while Eloise followed behind her, looking paranoid as if someone was going to jump her from behind. She relaxed when she saw Katherine though.

"Good evening, Katherine." She eyed the dress that she was wearing, the one that she had given her for her birthday last year. "You look nice. Are you going on a date?"

"Nope." She said looking eager at the disappointed look in her grandmother's face. She started braiding Emma's hair. "I'm going out with friends. Where's Anna?" Anna was Emma's nanny.

"Her mom got sick so she had to take care of her," Emma explained. "You look really pretty, Aunt Katherine."

"Thank you, honey."

"Well, have a nice time with your friends, dear," Eloise sighed as she grabbed Emma's hand. "And I told you wear something else rather than black and try to diminish the red lipstick. You look like a combination of Morticia Addams and Marilyn Monroe."

Katherine rolled her eyes as she watched Emma and Eloise walk away. Eloise always complained that she wore too much black, though she wondered why Eloise had given her a black dress instead of the pink dress she always wanted her to wear.

She got into the taxi and in twenty minutes she was standing in front of a small, crowded Italian place called Giovanni's. "Need help, ma'am opening the door?" the taxi driver asked.

She shook her head. "I've got it."

At the same time that she got out, another man was exiting the taxi next to her. A very familiar man with dark hair and green eyes. He frowned when he saw her. "Katherine?"

Katherine gave a curt nod, "Stefan." He looked like the classic good boy. Too bad he was the opposite. Ok, so maybe she was judging Stefan too harshly. He was a nice enough guy. His brother was the dick.

There was an awkward silence between them as they both walked towards the restaurant... Stefan finally broke the awkwardness. "How have you been? How's everything at the magazine?"

"It's good." She said refusing to meet his gaze. "I'm surprise you're here, I never thought I'd see you again. Emma keeps asking about you, though I wouldn't be surprise if you didn't know that."

"I call Emma every week and I've been helping Eloise with the expenses." Stefan said tiredly. "But I don't exactly live next door, Katherine and I appreciate everything you and Eloise do."

Katherine crossed her arms over her chest. "Emma just doesn't need her aunt and uncle, Stefan she needs her father by the way, where is he?"

"He's. . ." he trailed off. "Busy."

Katherine snorted. "Which means he's with women, why am I not surprise. Damon will hump everything that moves."

Stefan sighed. "Can we please, not do this? I'm guessing you're here with Rebekah."

"Yep. Her date crashed so I'm here as a replacement." She frowned when she approach the restaurant. Rebekah was already there in a red dress along with a man wearing a suit who looked surprisingly familiar. Opps.

"Are you ok?" Stefan asked.

"I know him." She said motioning towards the guy in the suit that was looking back at her with an equally perplexed expression. "He was the doctor that treated me when I broke my wrist. He's Rebekah's brother?"

* * *

"Elijah, will you please stop fidgeting?" Rebekah snapped as she applied more mascara. "They will be here soon, you're making me nervous."

"I'm making you nervous?" Elijah asked his sister amused. "You're not the one who's going to be having dinner with a complete stranger."

Rebekah rolled her eyes playfully. "It's just a friend, she's the fashion editor. You'll like her, she has a lot of . . . spirit."

"Last time you set me up, the woman kept talking about her ex-husband," Elijah's eyes trailed around the crowd. Fashion editor? That rang a bell. "What did you say her name was?"

Before Rebekah could respond she smiled. "There they are, finally!"

Elijah turned his gaze to where his sister was staring and had seen enough pictures to know which man was Stefan Salvatore and walking next to him, pouting was also a very familiar person that he hadn't seen in over two weeks.

"Katherine," he breathed as he looked at Rebekah and then at Katherine. "You two know each other?"

"Of course we know each other, silly. We work together." She giggled as she hugged Stefan. "I'm so happy you're here."

Katherine cocked her head to the side and crossed her arms over her chest. "You're Rebekah's older brother? Small world."

"Yeah, I can't believe I meet you and you two work together." He trailed off, unsure of what to say since Stefan and Rebekah were currently making out next to them. "How's the wrist?"

She shrugged. "It's good."

"I see you still haven't given up on the heels though." He said pointing to the five inch heels.

She smirked at she looked at her heels. "What can I say? I think I rather fall down the stairs again rather than give them up. Is this weird to you also?"

Elijah chuckled. "Very weird."

Rebekah and Stefan finally stopped kissing to stare back at them. "You two know each other?"

"Yep," she waved her wrist. "He fix all of this."

Rebekah smacked her forward. "I should have told you that Elijah works there when you told me which hospital you stayed overnight."

_Yeah, it would have been a nice mention,_ she though sarcastically. She put on a smile. "So, shall we head to dinner?"

-End of Chapter Four-

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	5. Chapter 5

**5**

There was an obvious awkward silence once the four of them got seated at the dinner table. Stefan kept clearing his throat and looking around at the restaurant as if begging someone to rescue him. Elijah was peering at Katherine and at her cast curiously, while Katherine pretended to be immensely interested in the silverware.

The only one who seemed not to notice the awkwardness was Rebekah, who was like a little ball of sunshine.

"Stefan, sorry I'm being rude I didn't introduce you," Rebekah turned to Katherine. "This is Katherine Pierce, she's the fashion editor at Ruby Red and this is my older brother, Elijah he was the one that treated Katherine actually."

"Oh," Stefan switched his gaze from Elijah to Katherine. "Are you two dating?"

"No!" Both Elijah and Katherine said together, though both of them were pretty loud when denying Stefan's simple questions and some of the other guests looked at them as if they were insane.

Katherine blushed and started playing with the napkin that was on her plate. "Elijah and I had an unfortunate run in when I fell down the stairs and dislocated my shoulder and broke my wrist."

"Ouch." Stefan winced. "How did that happened?"

"She was being clumsy," Elijah spoke up before Katherine could even get a word out. He took a sip of his wine. "And wearing ridiculously high, high heels."

"Some of us can handle a little pain when it comes to being fashionable." Katherine shot back icily though she was giving him one of her famous watch-it smiles.

Elijah ignored the look that she was giving him. "Well, I don't think a little pain classifies with falling down the stairs and breaking body parts." He shrugged. "No offense, Miss Pierce."

"None taken." She grabbed a roll from the bread basket and started spreading butter on it, trying not to throw the roll across the room. "Though it can happen to anyone."

Elijah snorted.

"What wasn't necessary was keeping me overnight like some psyche who can't control herself," she cocked her head to the side. "Especially for something as simple as a cast."

"In my defense you were refusing to get the cast all together." He pointed out. "I was doing it as a necessary precaution."

"Which was?"

"Trying to prevent you from doing something stupid."

Katherine looked like she wanted to jab the knife in Elijah's forehead. Rebekah finally sensing the tension opened her menu. "Why don't we stop talking about whose fault it was?" she turned to the waiter. "I'll have the lasagna with salad, please."

By the time that dessert arrived Katherine didn't know who she should kill Rebekah who had suggested this, or herself for actually agreeing to it.

"Stefan, my sister tells me that you are a doctor in Seattle," Elijah took a sip of his coffee as he looked at his sister's potential beau. Rebekah was well known for easily falling in love, but Stefan was the only man that she had dated that Elijah actually liked. "What kind of doctor exactly?"

"Pediatrician. A children's doctor." Stefan answered as he squeezed Rebekah's hand. "Though I recently got transferred to St. Joseph's I believe that's where you work."

"Yes, I'm a general practitioner, it looks like we're going to be working together." Elijah smiled as he looked across his sister. "Isn't it funny, all of us working together in the same city?"

_Hilarious. Great, Stefan living in the same city as I am hooray_, Katherine stabbed her fork through her chocolate cake.

Elijah sensing her annoyance towards Stefan, turned back to Stefan. "Do you two know each other?"

"Yeah," Stefan cleared his throat and looked mildly embarrassed. "Katherine and I went to the same high school together and she is-was my sister in law."

Katherine scoot out of her chair and placed two twenties on the table not caring that both Rebekah and Elijah were staring at her as if she were nuts. She felt that if she spent more than five minutes with Stefan she was going to burst. "I'm sorry, I just remember something I forgot to do. Dinner was fun, thank you. Good night."

* * *

"Katherine! Katherine!"

Katherine turned around and to continue her awful night, Elijah was running after her. Apparently he had enough of watching Rebekah and Stefan drool all over each other as well. "Yeah? I thought you were staying with your sister."

"No, she and Stefan are still going to the bar, and I have an early shift tomorrow." He motioned towards the small parking lot. "I have a car, I can drive you home if you want."

"You have a car?" It was difficult having a car in New York City because it was especially hard to find parking.

"Yeah, I'm not a big fan of public transportation."

Katherine thought for a second, she really wasn't in the mood to hail a taxi. "Sure, why not? Thanks."

"Wow, who knew that you could be so agreeable and I didn't even have to beg."

"Don't push it, Dr. Mikaelson."

Katherine and Elijah got into Elijah's black car and it wasn't until they made their first stop that Elijah asked the question that Katherine had been waiting for him to ask. "So what's going on between you and Stefan?"

Katherine raised an eyebrow at him.

He shrugged. "Sorry, I'm being too personal."

"Its fine, you'll going to find out eventually," Katherine rested her head against the seat. "Might as well be from me. Stefan and I grew up together as childhood friends he had an older brother named Damon, he was the real trouble." She paused. "I have-I had a twin sister named Elena. She married Damon and she had Emma, but less than a year after they were married she found out that he was having an affair with her friend Rose, which wasn't a surprise, he wasn't stable. Alcohol, drugs the usual. It broke my sister's heart but me and my grandmother convinced her to divorce him. Elena was on and off for years and she finally couldn't take it anymore and she committed suicide the year before. My grandmother holds custody of Emma, and I know I shouldn't be blaming him, but every time I see him I get reminded of his brother and what he did to my sister and it makes me so angry. I know it isn't Stefan's fault, but it's like I'm looking for someone to blame."

"I'm sorry, Katherine." Elijah murmured.

She shrugged. "It's fine. In a some kind of twisted way, it was a lesson. I don't want to get hurt."

"No, it's not fine." Elijah said exasperated. "You have a right to be hurt and angry, you don't have to hide it." He paused. "And you can always talk to me."

"Look can we not talk about this anymore?" she sounded annoyed as she picked up her ringing phone. "Hello."

"Auntie Kat?" Emma sounded like she had been crying.

"Emma," Katherine immediately grew concerned. "What's wrong?"

"Grandma stepped on some glass, her foot is bleeding." She started crying again.

"Ok, stay there I'll be there soon." Katherine hung up and tried to change her facial expression to appear that nothing was wrong. Elijah would drive her home, she'll get a taxi, and get her grandmother to the hospital.

Elijah noticed the tense look on Katherine's face. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"Katherine." Elijah sounded annoyed. "I can tell by your face that's something wrong. What is it?"

"My grandmother just stepped on broken glass, ok?" she finally admitted. "That was my niece calling me, just let me out here and I'll take a taxi-"

"Katherine, what's the address?"

"I told you I can-"

"Katherine, you're going to end up taking her to the doctor anyway," Elijah said with a short laugh even though it was no laughing matter. "Might as well be me."

Katherine pursed her lips. "Go straight down fifth avenue, I'll tell you when to stop."

-End of Chapter Five-

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	6. Chapter 6

**6**

Katherine was nervously jiggling her foot, unaware of what she was doing. Sure she and Eloise didn't get along, especially since she was constantly bothering her with the whole "get settle down" speech, but that did not mean that she wanted anything happening to her.

"Katherine, can you please stop jiggling your foot," Elijah told her once he parked the car. "There is no need for you to be so nervous, it's going to be fine."

"I'm not nervous." She snapped, then felt guilty for snapping at him. Elijah had been the least horrible thing that had happened to her all evening.

They stepped out of the car and Katherine opened the door of her grandmother's townhouse. Katherine immediately noticed the shattered glass from the kitchen. "Emma?"

Emma came running towards them and hugged Katherine by the knees. "I thought you weren't going to come."

"There was a lot of traffic," Katherine patted her hair. "Where's grandma?"

"In her room," she sniffed. "She was going to make coffee, but she dropped the cup and she stepped on it-she wasn't wearing her slippers."

"Katherine, do you have a first aid kit?" Elijah prompted as he took off his suit jacket and placed it over one of the arm chairs.

Katherine nodded as she went to the medicine cabinet and pulled out a small first aid kit. "Here."

"And a pair of clean, new tweezers?" Katherine looked confused, and he elaborated. "To pull out the pieces of a glass."

When Katherine returned with the tweezers, they both entered Eloise's room, they heard Eloise slightly cursing while hiding whimpering cries of pain. "Grandma?"

"Katherine, there you are," she momentarily forgot her bloody foot that was dangling on the bed when she saw Elijah. "Oh, and you're that young, doctor fellow from the hospital."

"Yes, ma'am." Elijah bended down to inspect her foot. It wasn't that bad it certainly could have been worse. There were about six small pieces of glass, but not of them had cut too deeply. "Now how about we take care of your foot?"

"That's very nice of you dear," Eloise responded. "But are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Grandma!" Katherine scolded.

"I'm a General Practitioner, you could say I know a little bit of everything." He started opening the first aid kit and pulling out the rubbing alcohol and bandages. He turned towards Katherine slightly and saw that she was pale and looking at the blood. Apparently, she couldn't handle blood very well.

"Um, Katherine," Elijah turned back towards Katherine. Her face was pale and she looked like she was about to be sick. Obviously, she couldn't handle the amount of blood very well. "Maybe you should go outside and clean up the glass in the kitchen."

"No," she shook her head determingly as she began straightening the things that her grandmother had knocked over. "I can manage."

Elijah was about to insist again, when Eloise's bored voice followed Elijah's. "Dear, listen to him, you have never been able to handle the sight of too much blood. The last thing that the doctor needs is for you to faint."

Katherine hated to admit it, but the stench of blood was becoming stronger now and it was making her stomach jump. "That's probably a good idea, just call me if you need anything."

* * *

"So, Dr. Mikaelson-"

_Plink._ A shard of glass.

"Please, call me Elijah."

"Very well, Elijah are you married?"

Elijah laughed. "Not yet."

"Girlfriend? Lady Friend?"

"No, single at the moment."

Eloise looked relief.

Elijah looked back, he had just finished taking the glass out and was now applying rubbing alcohol to her swollen foot. Eloise winced. "Sorry," he paused for a bit. "Is your granddaughter dating anyone?"

Eloise nodded and shook her head, "She hasn't gone out with anyone since she dumped that idiot, Mason."

Elijah cocked an eyebrow. "Mason?"

"Mason Lockwood." She mused as Elijah bandaged her foot. "Katherine, has always had terrible taste in men, but Mason surely took the cake. The guy was a jealous, controlling maniac. That was two years ago and she's been in a constant spiral of dating the worst guys in the world."

"She'll find someone eventually." Elijah stood up. "Here, take some pain pills it will help you sleep and its better if you don't step on that foot for at least a week while it heals. I'll come check on it, in a week."

"But how am I supposed to go out to play bridge with my friends?" Eloise moodily asked.

Elijah closed the first aid kit. _I guess stubbornness runs in the family_, he mused. "Ask them to play bridge here. If you need anything Mrs. Pierce, please don't hesitate to give me a call."

Eloise didn't bother responding, she was already falling asleep on the sleeping pills.

"Is she-" Katherine nervously, stepped inside glad that there was no more blood.

"She's fine. She's sleeping." He responded awkwardly. "I'm going to clean up the blood"

She nodded. "Elijah . . . thanks." Elijah nodded as he headed out. She walked towards Eloise who was almost asleep.

"Elena?" she murmured. "No, Katherine."

"It's ok," Katherine whispered, squeezing her grandmother's hand. She slowly watched the old lady's eyes close in sleep. "I'm right here."

* * *

"Is Grandma going to be ok?"

Elijah turned off the faucet from the sink and dried his hand with a kitchen towel and turned to face Emma, who was staring at him curiously. Elijah nodded, he wasn't used to talking to children, and he could barely remember when his own siblings had been children.

"Yes," he confirmed, "She is going to be fine, I gave her some pills to help her sleep. Your Aunt Katherine is with her right now."

Emma cocked her head to the side. "Are you Aunt Kat's boyfriend?" Before Elijah could deny the fact, she continued. "I don't remember Aunt Kat having a boyfriend, Granny says it's because she dates good for nothing losers, are you a good for nothing loser?"

Elijah chuckled. "No, I'm not dating your aunt, we're just friends." Though friends was a bit of an overstatement.

"Oh, there you are." Katherine said as she stepped into the kitchen. "Emma, you should probably go to bed. You have school tomorrow."

Emma pouted. "All right, good night Aunt Kat, goodnight Dr. Elijah."

"Good night."

Katherine gave him a small smile full of relief. "Thank you so much for tonight, I know I wasn't much help."

"Nonsense, you were," he tried to search for a compliment, but he couldn't find one. "Yes, you probably wouldn't have made a good nurse."

Katherine rested her hand on the kitchen counter. "So, how much do I owe you?"

"Katherine, you don't have to pay me. I was happy to help."

"Elijah," she said determine. "Really, how much?"

Elijah chuckled at her insistence. "Fine, if you want to pay me, how about a cup of coffee tomorrow?"

-End of Chapter Six-

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	7. Chapter 7

**7**

"Ok, Mr. Collins, please avoid any foods that are high in fat and try to minimize your food intake." Elijah looked at the clipboard showing all of his patient's information while trying not to look at the clock. He had agree to meet up with Katherine at six for coffee and it was only 4:30 so he wasn't sure why he was checking the clock every five seconds. "Any questions?"

Mr. Collins who seemed to be more interested on the TV in front of him shook his head. "No, thanks Doc. When will I be release?"

"If everything goes well, tomorrow morning you should be back in your own home."

As Elijah exited the room, he ran into Davina. "Sorry about that."

"No problem." Davina smiled as she fixed her ponytail. "What are you so smiley about? You look happy."

"No particular reason."

Davina gave an eye roll. "Tell that to someone who hasn't worked with you for the past few years."

"All right." Elijah started walking down the hallway. "Something very exciting is happening this afternoon and I'm looking forward to it."

"Like . . .?"

"Tell you what if everything goes well, you will be the first to know." Elijah raised his eyebrow when he saw Stefan walking towards him. "Hi, Stefan first day?"

"Yep." Stefan nodded towards Davina. "It's a little overwhelming."

"You'll get used to it. At least you work with kids, they're cuter at least." He motioned towards Davina. "Davina, this is Stefan Salvatore. Stefan this is Davina."

"But kids are louder." He shook Davina's hand. "Nice to meet you."

Davina nodded. "Hey, aren't you the one dating his sister?" Stefan blushed and mumbled a response. "I thought so, she did say you had a superhero haircut."

* * *

Katherine glance at the clock at the bottom of the screen, 5:30 she should probably get going soon, even though she hated leaving soon. She grabbed her purse and turned off her computer and she was just about to leave the office when her cell phone rang. "Hello."

"Hi," it was Caroline and her voice sounded tired. "I had a rough day, how about we go out for a drink tonight? Maybe some online shoe shopping?"

Katherine winced. "I'm sorry, Care I'm meeting someone for coffee."

"Oh, who? Someone who is doing a shoot for the magazine."

"Not exactly," she said quickly. "I'm just going out for coffee with Elijah, but it's no big deal. I just want to thank him for helping me with Eloise. It's not a big deal, ok?"

But Katherine might as well have been talking to the wall, because Caroline was squealing over the phone. "You and the doctor? That is so weird, but definitely in a good way. I told you, you should have started dating again-"

"Caroline," Katherine tried to calm down her overexcited friend, but it was obvious that she wasn't doing much of a good job. "It's just coffee."

"Whatever," she said smugly. "It will turn out into something more, Pierce mark my words. Have fun on your date."

"I'm serious it's like we never left high school."

* * *

The café they had suggested they meet was near Katherine's office. It was a small, nearly empty café and by the time that Katherine arrived Elijah was already waiting. She was surprised that he was wearing a suit.

"Hi," she sat in the chair across from him. "Just out of curiosity, do you always wear suits?"

"Yeah," he said looking down at his tie. She had never notice before, but his teeth were very white. "It's a habit of mine, I actually preferred them over scrubs."

"Well, you're one in a million, most guys hate wearing a suit." She opened her menu and a waitress came to take their order. Katherine ordered a Frappuccino and Elijah a simple black coffee.

"How's your grandmother?" Elijah asked politely.

Katherine took a sip of her drink. "Good, she says her foot doesn't hurt that much. She complains a lot though."

Elijah stifled a laugh. "That sounds familiar."

"Hey, I actually have a job the most the does is play Bridge on Tuesdays and Thursdays." She rested her hand on her chin. "So you had to hear my whole sob story last time. What's yours?"

"I actually don't have a sob story."

Katherine rolled her eyes. "Yes, you do everyone has a sob story. What's yours? Secretly married? Drug trafficker? FBI agent is disguise?"

"I'm afraid I'm not that interesting." He paused. "I grew up in Mystic Falls, it's a small town in Virginia before I decided to move to New York for college and med school."

"Rebekah mentioned you had another brother, Klaus I think who lives in Europe."

Elijah nodded. "He lives in Italy, he's a painter. Though, I think he moved there because he can't stand my father." Elijah closed his mouth feeling that he had said too much. "Klaus is my half sibling and that cause some tension between my father and him. It doesn't help that both of them have their tempers."

"Maybe they'll work it out." She replied.

"I doubt it, but it's a nice thought."

"Have you ever been to Cancun?" she blurted out.

Elijah raised an eyebrow. "No. Why do you ask?"

She shrugged. "No reason. I always wanted to go there, the beaches look so pretty, definitely different from New York. Though it makes it hard to travel with work and stuff. I was kind of hoping you would have gone so you can tell me what it's like."

"Well, if I ever go I'll bring you a seashell or something." He promised.

Katherine giggled. "You know, you're not so bad when you're not being bossy."

"You're not so bad, when you're not being stubborn." He shot back.

Katherine finished her drink. "Touché."

They spend half an hour talking back and forth about their jobs until Katherine and Elijah stood up and walked into the chilly New York air.

Katherine stopped short when she saw an armful of blond curls. "Caroline."

Caroline at least pretended to be surprise. "Oh, hi Katherine I didn't see you there. Hi, Dr. Mikaelson is nice to see you again too."

_Subtle_, Katherine glared at her. Caroline pretended not to notice. Elijah was amused by the whole scenario.

"Please call me, Elijah." Elijah corrected. "You're Katherine's friend, Caroline right?"

"Yeah, I was just getting a new book." She waved her bookstore bag as proof.

"Well, I need to get going. Thank you, Katherine for today. Goodbye, Caroline." He gave a little wave as he walked the opposite direction.

"Caroline, were you stalking us?" Katherine snapped as soon as Elijah was out of sight.

"Don't think of it as stalking, think of it as me being overly curious." They hailed a taxi. "I mean this is the first time you've gone on a date with a halfway decent guy, you can't blame me for being curious."

"Couldn't you have waited until I told you?"

"Would you have told me?"

Katherine didn't answer.

"Exactly." Caroline replied smugly. "You guys look really good together, if you ever get married can I be your maid of honor?"

"Sure." She replied jokingly. "If ever get married to Elijah, I'll let you plan my wedding."

-End of Chapter Six-

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	8. Chapter 8

**8**

"Miss Piece, Miss Mikaelson wants to see you," April informed Katherine the next morning as soon as she got into her office. There was panic in her blue eyes while she tried to arrange letters and put them in the proper envelops while at the same time trying to handle the several phones that were ringing. "This is April Young, please hold."

Katherine nodded. She wasn't even annoyed that Rebekah had scheduled an early morning appointment even before her first cup of coffee like she would be otherwise. Today was a good day, she was going to get her stupid cast off, a week earlier than she had plan.

She was getting it removed this afternoon and to makes matters more pleasant she was flying on the early bird flight to Japan tomorrow for the spring shoot.

Katherine pushed the door open of Rebekah's office. The blond was dressed in a black pencil skirt and a white blouse and was shouting into her Bluetooth. "No, Charles, I don't care if you have to grovel to get the venue, but you better get it!" she paused when she saw Katherine. "I'll call you back, Charles."

Katherine raised an eyebrow. "Problem?"

"Yes," Rebekah nodded as she sat back in her chair. "That is why I never trust interns. Coffee?"

She shook her head and showed her the Starbuck to go cup and stared at Rebekah awkwardly. She didn't even know why she was here. "April, told me-"

"As yes, April." She snapped her fingers. "Please sit down, Katherine."

Katherine sat in the leather black chairs in front of Rebekah's messy desk. She crossed her ankles. "Is this about an article? Didn't you like-"

Rebekah waved away her worries with a lazy hand gesture. "Forget about the article, the article is fine, the whole fashion editorial is fine." She narrowed her blue eyes on Katherine. "I want to talk about my brother."

Katherine had to blink twice to figure out that Rebekah was talking about Elijah. "Your brother, Elijah?"

After their coffee date, Katherine and Elijah hadn't seen each other, they send the occasional, random text to each other, but nothing special. Katherine was actually starting to think that he was a half decent guy. Surely better than the jerks she usually went out to coffee with.

Rebekah pursed her lips. "Yes, Elijah." He had casually mentioned to Rebekah that he had gone out for coffee with Katherine after her grandmother had an accident and that was enough to risen Rebekah's suspicions. She did not want her older brother get hurt, he had already been screwed over once by Hayley Marshall, she was not going to let it happen again not even with someone she worked with. "Yes, what are your motives with him?"

_My motives?_ Katherine thought. _What is_ _this 1956? What does Rebekah think I'm going to_ do, _kidnap Elijah and throw him in the back of a truck?_ "I don't have any motives."

Rebekah didn't look like she believed her.

She sighed exasperated. "Look, Rebekah there is nothing going on between Elijah and me. We just went out for coffee, I just wanted to thank him for what he did with Eloise."

Rebekah seemed to soften. "Oh," she reddened. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrogate you, it's just I don't want to have a recap of the whole Hayley drama."

Katherine raised an eyebrow. "Hayley?"

Rebekah shook her head as she took a sip of her latte, looking more relaxed than this morning. "It's a long story and someone not worth mentioning. That will be all."

* * *

Elijah rubbed his tired eyes together it seemed the hospital was crowded now more than ever and every person seemed to want to complain to him about something that wasn't reverent to their actual ailment. Elijah was usually proud of his patience, but right now he had to admit that it was wearing thin.

Someone was shaking a coffee cup in front of him. "Rough day? Coffee always helps."

He opened his eyes and looked back at the person carrying him the coffee cup. "Katherine?"

Katherine gave him an impish sort of smile. The cast was off her wrist and she was proudly carrying the coffee cup in one hand and her purse in the other. "I got my cast off and a nurse, I think Danielle or Davina was her name told me you were on shift right now, so I decided to pay a visit. Are you busy?"

"No, I was just heading out for a much needed break," he led her towards the cafeteria. "Please."

Once they had settled in a table, Katherine looked around curiously. "I don't know how you do it, honestly. How can you handle all the pressure and the blood? I see someone gushing blood and I will probably start freaking out."

Elijah shrugged. "Practice, I'm not going to lie though the first time I saw what it looked like when a bone went through the skin I nearly fainted."

Katherine giggled. "You sister interrogated me today," she bit off a piece of a cookie. "She thinks I'm trying to encourage you to join a gang or something. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that older brothers were supposed to protect their little sister not the other way around."

Elijah rolled back his shoulders. "You work for her, you know how complicated Rebekah can be." He also needed to talk to her about minding her own business. "How's the arm?"

"A little wobbly, but happy of being freed." She grinned and shared her exiting news. "I'm going to Japan for two weeks tomorrow, to do a shoot. I'm not going to lie, it's actually something I wanted to do for a long time."

"Wow, Japan that seems great. Once you come back maybe we can do something." Elijah said casually.

Katherine looked at him curiously. "I would love that."

* * *

"We are departing in ten minutes from JKF in route to Japan, flight 569. Please turn off all electronical devices and fasten your seatbelts and have a lovely trip." The stewardess announce at 5:45 the next morning,

Katherine tightened the dark blue blanket around her body in an attempt to shield off the chilly air. She closed her laptop and settled her head back against the chair and closed her eyes trying to get some sleep.

_Once you come back, maybe we can do something_.

An unexpected smile appeared on her face. It seemed that the Mikaelsons had a way of getting under her skin. She wondered what they would do after she came back. Two weeks seemed like a long time to wait.

* * *

"Elijah." Stefan smiled as he tightened his scarf around his neck and walked next to Elijah. "Your shift is over?"

Elijah nodded. It was almost midnight, a little later than he was used too, but it seemed tonight everyone had tried to get into accidents. "Kind of late for a pediatrician isn't it? My sister is going to kill you."

"Actually, I don't think she's even home yet," Stefan shrugged and elaborated. "A three year old swallowed a penny and a nickel and the parents almost came close to attacking me, so time went by faster than normal."

Elijah raised his head up and saw a plane fly by. Katherine was leaving to Japan in only a few hours. He still couldn't believe that she still talked to him after her accident and the accident with Eloise.

She had seemed happier today, more relaxed which seemed rare. Two weeks until he saw her again.

-End of Chapter Eight-


	9. Chapter 9

**9**

"These are the photos that we took this afternoon, Miss Pierce," April said as she handed her a stack of papers. "And Miss Akane Otonashi, wants to know if you two will be having dinner tonight?"

Katherine nodded as she took the folder from April and looked at the main photo that they were going to use for the magazine cover for the next month. It was a picture of a frequent model they used wearing a pink dress with a rainbow of cherry blossoms at the background.

"Can you please tell them to make the cherry blossom back to the original color?" Katherine asked as she handed the photographs back to April. All the pink, blues, oranges, and greens were making her dizzy and were starting to remind Katherine more of a bad seventies picture.

"Oh, sure." April said taking the pictures.

When Katherine got out it was raining and she gave an irritated sigh. This would be her third pair of heels that would get wet because of the rain. Thankfully, her hotel wasn't that far from here.

She tightened her hand around the handle of her umbrella and walked towards her hotel as fast as she could.

This had been the first time she had visited Japan and it was safe to say that it probably would be her last. The traffic was worse than New York and it didn't help that her Japanese wasn't the greatest either.

She was glad when she finally reached the hotel and manage to close down her umbrella. Katherine pushed back her wet curls. She hated it, when it rained it turned her curls into a mess.

"Miss Pierce?" the elderly concierge of the hotel greeted her as he attempted to speak to her in broken English. "There are several messages in your inbox."

Katherine gave a curt nod. She had found out that her cell phone was completely useless the minute she left the airport so she had been stuck using the hotel's phone. She wondered who it was, probably Rebekah to see how the shoot was going. Though, she and Rebekah had known each other for so long that she barely bothered to call now.

Katherine put her umbrella and coat in the hall closer and went to check her inbox in her phone box. She had five new messages.

_Caroline_-Hey, how it's going? I bet you're having way more for fun than me, I'm debating what kind of cards the kids should do for Valentine's Day. Thrilling, huh? Anyway, call me back as soon as you can your cell phone must not be working.

_Rebekah_-Katherine, I think I'm going down to Japan as well, I'll call you when I arrange flight schedules.

_Caroline_- Hey, me again. Call me back as soon as you can it's very important.

_Eloise_-Katherine, call me back as soon as possible. It's urgent.

_Elijah_-Katherine, we need to talk. Call me soon.

Katherine frowned. The messages left her more confused than ever. She decided to call Eloise first then Elijah and Caroline. Eloise picked up on the first ring. "Hi, grandma what did you want to tell me?"

"Why didn't you answer until now?" Eloise sounded tired and worried over the phone, which was rare for her.

Katherine took off her heels and put on some red slippers. "My cell phone stopped working. What is it?"

There was a pause before Eloise said. "You need to come home."

"I'll be home in a week once the shoot is done, I can't just drop everything and leave-"

"Katherine, it's important." Eloise said tightly, her voice shook. "Emma was run over by a car when she was playing. The doctors aren't sure if she's going to make it. You need to come home."

* * *

"So you never told me how it went on your date," Davina teased as she and Elijah switched clipboards of different patients. "Come on Elijah, it's been a week you have nothing to tell?"

"That's because there is nothing to tell, Miss Claire." Elijah teased her back. "We had coffee. We talked. Nothing else. No secret affairs or whatever else you think happened."

Davina rolled her eyes. "Wow, you're boring."

Before Elijah could respond Marcel Gellard, one on the EMT came running into the hospital pulling a gurney along with two other EMT and three nurses. "Claire, we need your help." Marcel ordered.

Davina nodded as she put down the clipboard and put on a pair of clean gloves and hurried towards the gurney. "What was the cause of the accident?"

"Poor kid got run over by a car," Marcel responded quickly. "From what I can see she has suffered heavy internal bleeding and head injuries. Her name is Emma Nadia Salvatore."

Elijah's ears perked up at the name, it couldn't be-

At that precise moment Eloise came running and wailing behind, Caroline was trying to calm her down, but it was obvious that it wasn't working. "Emma! Please save my great granddaughter!"

It was her. Katherine's niece. Elijah rushed next to the gurney and whispered. "Emma. Emma, can you hear me?"

Emma slowly opened her eyes as she stared at Elijah.

"Mister Elijah." Emma murmured.

"I'm here," Elijah spoke hurriedly as nurses huddled around them. "Emma, do you know what happened?"

"Hurt." Emma responded. "Everything hurts."

"Ok," Elijah said desperately. "Where does it hurt?"

But Emma didn't respond, instead her eyes froze on the ceiling. Elijah squeezed his eyes shut. The pain that came with losing a patient came flowing back. Rest in peace, Emma.

"Cause of death, extreme blood loss." Davina murmured as she stared at Elijah. It was obvious that Elijah knew this kid, but from where?"

Nobody spoke.

Eloise gave a low cry. Caroline looked crestfallen.

"Sharon, paged me, she-"Stefan froze when he saw Eloise, Caroline, and then Emma. Stefan kept staring at Emma's body. "No, no Emma. She can't be dead, she can't-"

Elijah gently closed Emma's eyes. "Time and date of death March 22, 5:45 PM."

-End of Chapter Nine-

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	10. Chapter 10

**10**

"Can't you go any faster?" Katherine yelled to the driver as he strolled past Third Avenue, the next morning. "It's an emergency!" She had taken the first flight out from Japan to New York leaving poor April to dear with all her missing appointments, and she had tried calling everyone but conveniently everyone was avoiding her like the plague.

"I'm sorry, ma'am." The driver grumbled. "Morning traffic."

Katherine hissed at him as she dropped a twenty dollar bill in his hand. "I'll get out here, thanks." She grabbed her two wheelie suitcases and ran towards the hospital which was only three blocks away (almost knocking down a few people over.)

After getting some information from a nurse, Katherine found Eloise, Caroline, and Stefan in the waiting room at the ER. "Why is anyone not answering their phones?" she snapped, not even bothering to let them answer her. Instead she turned back to Eloise. "What happened?"

Eloise's face was pale and tired. "Emma, was playing outside with her two friends when a car came out of nowhere and hit her-"

"Cars, just don't appear!" she growled. "Weren't you watching her?"

"Calm down, Katherine." Caroline told her friend. "From what she told me, the driver was drunk and the car was spinning out of control-"

Katherine ignored Caroline. "Weren't you watching her?"

Eloise didn't respond. "I might have become distracted. It was an accident, Katherine."

"You became distracted?!" Katherine yelled. "Emma, could die because of that."

Eloise dissolved into quiet sobs, Caroline wrapped her arms around her and threw a pity glance towards Katherine. "Come on, Mrs. Pierce, I'll take you home."

Once Caroline and Eloise were out of sight she glance back at Stefan. This had been the first time she had spoken to him in weeks after their failed dinner. "What happened? Where's Emma?"

Before Stefan could respond, Elijah came into the room. He gave Stefan a nod and he murmured his goodbye. Katherine turned her frantic eyes towards Elijah. "Elijah, can you please tell me what happened? Where's Emma? Can I see her? Is she in surgery-"

"Katherine," Elijah hesitated. "Emma is dead. She died yesterday of extreme blood loss we wanted to wait until today to tell you."

Katherine gaped as she shook her head, her eyes welled up with tears. "No, you're lying. Emma, can't be dead she's just seven, Elijah. No, she can't be dead, she just can't."

Elijah sighed as he wrapped his arms around her tightly. "I am so sorry, Katherine."

* * *

The door of the apartment door click open and Katherine opened in weakly while dropping her two suitcases, not even caring where they landed with a thud. Her white kitty, Marie came to greet her, her pink toung out eagerly waiting for Katherine's arrival.

Katherine grimly bended down and patted Marie's head without enthusiasm and Marie purred. "Hey, girl."

Elijah who had been following behind her, stacked the suitcases that she had dropped on the floor neatly against the wall. The townhouse was clean because Katherine had contracted a cleaning service to take care of it, while she was in Japan, but it looked lonely, abandoned.

Katherine stopped petting Marie and walked towards the white coffee table that was filled with photos of her parents, Elena, Emma and a few ones of Caroline and even Eloise. She dropped the frames so that she didn't have to look at them anymore. Dead, dead, dead! They just kept mocking her.

Katherine couldn't even cry to relieve the pain. She was cried out and her eyes looked puffy and tired.

Elijah cleared his throat and Katherine had almost forgotten that he was there. "Can I get you anything?"

She shrugged. "Yesterday would be nice or Bourbon at least."

"Yeah, I don't think alcohol is the best method." He said as he heated up some water in the tea kettle and started pulling out tea bags. "I think tea will help. Are you jet lagged?"

She nodded, she was tired and sleepy and she really wanted to take a shower and get out of her sweaty skirt and blouse combo, but she didn't seem to find the will to do so. "Yeah." She took the tea that Elijah handed her and took a small sip. She took a pause. "Did she suffer?"

Elijah searched for the right words, obviously thinking that this was not the best thing to discuss at the moment, but she wanted to know. "She was in pain, yes when she came through the ER." He said slowly. "But she . . . passed away rather quickly."

"That's good." Her hand trembled as she took another sip of her tea before smashing it in the sink, breaking it into a million pieces and startling Elijah. "No, no it's not ok, it sucks! Out of all the people that idiot drunk driver had to hit why did it had to be my Emma? Why is life so fucking unfair!"

Elijah grasped her by the arms and tried to calm her down. "Katherine, it's going to be ok, you need to relax. You're tired, you're stressed, you had a long day I got some sedatives from the hospital to help you sleep."

"I don't have time, Elijah!" she snapped. "I need to plan the funeral, God knows Eloise isn't going to do it. And I need to call what few relatives we have left, arrange a viewing, pick a casket, order flowers-"

"Katherine." He said firmly as he led her back to her bedroom. "What you need to do right now is sleep. You're exhausted. I'll help you and I'm sure Caroline and Stefan will too, but what you need right now is sleep."

Katherine reluctantly got into the shower and half an hour later she was dressed in a t shirt and a pair of fluffy pajama pants feeling sleepier than ever. "What kind of tea did you give me?"

Elijah looked sheepish. "I slipped in some sedatives into your tea, I was afraid you wouldn't take them."

Katherine opened her mouth to protest, but then shrugged. "That probably was a good idea." She climbed into her bed and clutched the old, worn out Mickey Mouse blanket around her body. "You don't have to stay here, you know."

"I know." He said as he tightened the blanket around her body. "I want to."  
-End of Chapter Ten-


	11. Chapter 11

**11**

Katherine honestly didn't know how she made it through that week, everything seemed like a complete blur of phone calls, appointments, and repeating the same story over and over again. Caroline had been a great help in planning the funeral and for once in their entire friendship didn't question Katherine as much as she usually would have.

Katherine had forced Stefan to get in touch with Damon, though she doubted that Damon would should up even for his own daughter's funeral.

On the day of the funeral, Caroline wearing a black dress and a little jacket open the door of Katherine's townhouse, Marie purred besides her leg desperate for affection since Katherine had been ignoring her all week.

Caroline gave the kitty a small smile as she scratched her behind the ear. "Hey, kitty." She glance back at the stairway where Katherine was braiding her curly hair. "Hey, Kat you ready?"

She nodded as she grabbed her purse. "Yes, we should probably get to the church before everyone else arrives." She grimaced. "Thanks so much for coming with me, Care."

"Anytime." Caroline gave her friend's shoulder a squeeze. "What are friends for?"

Katherine was just locking the door of her house when her cell phone started ringing, the screen said Eloise.

Katherine hanged up without answering.

Caroline waited for a moment before nervously asking, "Shouldn't you answer?"

"Why bother?" she grumbled, trying her best not to snap at Caroline. Even though Caroline hadn't said anything she had seen the blond throwing her concerned looks all week and all though Katherine appreciate it, it was starting to get annoying. "I don't want to listen to anything that she has to say."

"Katherine," Caroline groaned as they got into a yellow taxicab. "St. Mary's Cathedral, please-it was an accident. A horrible, terrible accident that could have happened to anyone. The bastard is in jail now, it wasn't Eloise's fault. She feels guilty, Katherine." She sighed. "She's your grandmother."

"I know she is, Care." Katherine leaned against the backseat. "But it's just not that easy, she was supposed to care for Emma and-"she shook her head. "I really don't want to think about it. I just need time, ok?"

Caroline nodded, deciding not to push the subject as the taxi car parked in front of the church. "All right, was Elijah coming?"

She shrugged. "He said he would be here, but he was working late last night. So I told him it was ok, if he couldn't come." Caroline stared at her. "He send me a text last night, I was merely responding."

The church was filled with about thirty people since most of Emma's family members were dead and Stefan and Damon's parents were also dead. The church was mostly filled Emma's classmates and teacher from school and Emma's friends and parents from her ballet class.

Stefan and Rebekah were waiting for them in the first pew and Stefan gave her a small nod in greeting and Katherine returned it.

"My brother came as well," Rebekah informed her. "He's parking his car, he will be here soon."

"Thank you for coming," Katherine told her. "Especially on such short notice."

Rebekah nodded as she squeezed Stefan's hand. Stefan looked exhausted and Katherine guessed it was because he had worked all week and she guessed tailing after Damon wasn't an easy task.

Eloise came in shuffling wearing a black dress and holding a purse. She nodded at Katherine once, but didn't sit with them and instead choose to settle in on the pew next to her. The guilt settled in Katherine's stomach.

"Good afternoon," Elijah politely greeted them as he came and joined them, he relaxed when he saw that the service hadn't started yet. He glance at Katherine. "How are you feeling?"

She nodded, tired of the question. "Better."

They didn't speak another word until the pastor started the ceremony. It was short and bittersweet and all though the pastor was very kind and seemed to want to reassure them that Emma was a little angel in Heaven now, and that everything happened for a reason a knot seemed to settle in Katherine's stomach.

Suddenly, the church felt stuffy and Emma's ashes stored in a dark blue jar with golden flowers and leaves stood on top of the table in the middle of the aisle was making her nauseous. She really just wanted to get the hell out of here. Things didn't get any better when she heard Caroline besides her whispering. "Oh, no."

Katherine turned to her side slightly and then she saw him. Damon Salvatore. Emma's father and the man her twin sister, Elena had killed herself for.

He was standing in the back of the church his eyes facing the pastor and dressed in a black suit and for once in his life he looked sober. Katherine knew why his sister had fallen for him, despite his alcohol and drug problems, he was handsome like his brother Stefan. He had dark hair that curled at the tips and big, haunting blue eyes.

What was he doing here? Yes, she knew that Stefan would have told him, but she hadn't thought that she would actually show up. She felt her irritation growing and Elijah next to her notice her stiffing. "Are you all right?" he murmured.

She nodded. "I'm fine."

The ceremony ended and the people started exiting the church, the few people that actually knew Katherine offered their condolences, but most of them went to talk to Eloise.

Katherine stiffened when she saw Damon approach her, she looked towards Caroline or Stefan for support. But Caroline was talking with Emma's first grade teacher, Mrs. Pebbles and Stefan and Rebekah were talking quietly in a corner.

Katherine refused to put on any facial expression as Damon approached her, he was grimacing. "Stefan called me." He said as a form of greeting, even he sounded surprise which wasn't surprising since Stefan and Damon had had problems since high school.

"I'm surprise you came," Katherine said bluntly. "I didn't think you would care."

He scowled at her. "Of course I care. Emma was my daughter."

"And Elena was your wife, but that didn't seem to bother you when you left them both stranded." Katherine felt her anger boiling over.

"Look, Katherine you're the last person I want to talk to all right?" he snarled. "I came because Stefan asked me too, I didn't come to hear you bitching and whining just like you always do-"

"Then leave!" Katherine snapped back, momentarily forgotten that she was outside of a church. "No one wants you here. You certainly don't deserve to be here since, you hardly ever spoke to Emma. You're nothing but a good for nothing bastard and spineless coward-"

She felt a sharp slap on her cheek.

"Damon, no!" she heard Stefan yell and when Katherine opened her eyes again she saw Stefan and Elijah each gripping one of his arms.

"I got this," Stefan nodded once towards Elijah and Elijah reluctantly let go as Stefan pulled an arguing Damon outside.

Rebekah and Caroline were immediately by her side. "Are you ok?" Caroline's blue eyes widened. "Kat, your face-"

Rebekah interrupted her. "Why did he come for? I was sure that my almost brother in law was rotting in hell by now."

"I wish." Katherine mumbled as she rubbed her stinging cheek. "It was my fault too, I pushed him too far, but I don't regret it."

* * *

"Why do we always meet like this?" Katherine joked lightly. She was sitting on top of her kitchen counter, still wearing her black dress, but she had taken her heels off.

"It must be déjà vu, or fate," Elijah returned lightly as he rubbed something on Katherine's slightly swollen cheek than stung. "Sorry, but it will feel better later."

"I hope so," she murmured. Even though Damon had only slapped her, he seemed to have used half of his strength and her cheek had become slightly swollen. "I really wished I would have hit him back though."

"No offense or anything but something tells me he would have won."

"Don't underestimate me," she shot back. "This must get pretty boring for you, I must owe you at least a dozen favors by now."

"It's my job," Elijah said. "Patching people up."

Katherine's eyes welled up with tears, but she didn't know why. Maybe it was because she had been holding them in all week or because dealing with Damon had been the final straw that broke the camel's back. The tears started dripping down her face, even though she desperately wanted them to stop.

"What's wrong?" Elijah asked worried.

"I don't know." She blubbered.

But Elijah ever the gentleman didn't press her, instead he just handed her the tissue box and held her.

-End of Chapter Eleven-


	12. Chapter 12

**12**

How long had it been? Three days? Four? A week? Katherine honestly couldn't remember. After she had cried when Elijah had finish his first aid treatment, she had shut herself in her room.

Katherine had asked Rebekah for the week off even though she had already taken the previous week off to plan the funeral. Rebekah had taken pity on her had allowed her to take the week off.

Katherine had been planning on writing some fashion articles or reorganizing her closet, but instead she had just spend it in her bed eating ice cream and watching bad TV. The only company she had had all week had been her cat, Marie and her inbox was full of concern messages from her friends that Katherine had refused to speak too.

"Hey, Kat its Stefan. I'm really sorry about Damon. I honestly expected him to behave, once again I'm really sorry I wished it hadn't happen."

"Katherine, its Caroline I was wondering if you were free Friday. Maybe we can go catch a movie? I need a night off."

"Hi, its Rebekah don't worry about the article about the newest summer trends, I'm having Amy Tang doing it, feel better."

"Katherine, it's Elijah I have no idea why you're not answering your phone, but please call me back. I'm worried."

Katherine shut her eyes tight as she pulled the covers over her unwashed hair. They cared, they cared Katherine understood that so why couldn't they leave her alone? Didn't they understand that Katherine wanted to be alone?

It's your fault, it's your fault, was a constant loop in her head. If she had warned Elena about Damon beforehand then Elena would never have committed suicide, if she had helped Eloise more with Emma then maybe Emma would still be alive.

Katherine sighed. Why couldn't everything stop hurting?

* * *

"Miss Mikaelson," Anna Wellington, her assistant said over the intercom later that afternoon. "Your brother, Dr. Mikaelson is here."

A surprised Rebekah pushed back her messy blond hair. "Send him in."

A minute later, Elijah stepped in wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He kissed Rebekah's cheek. "I'm sorry to come without warning, Rebekah I know you must be busy."

"It's a pleasant surprise." Rebekah mused. "You're not in your suit."

"I just got off my shift." He told her. "Though I was wondering if I could speak to Katherine. I've been calling her for days and I haven't been able to reach her. Is she here?"

"No, I gave her the week off. Let me guess, she's ignoring your calls too." Rebekah said as she took out a pierce of gum and gave one to her brother. "I talked to Caroline and Stefan too and they said the same thing. I'm guessing she's still a bit depressed."

"Then she should talk it over." Elijah said, slightly frustrated. "Not hide her feelings and pretend that everything is ok."

Rebekah shrugged. "That's Katherine." She looked at him curiously. "You two have been pretty chummy lately. Why don't you whisk her away to a magical getaway that should take her mind off things?"

"I can't take her on a vacation." Elijah protested. "We barely know each other. Besides we're just friends."

"You've been seeing each other practically nonstop ever since she broke her wrist. I've slept with guys that I've known for less time." Rebekah rolled her eyes.

"Well, that gives me a lovely image." Elijah said with sarcasm. "Do you have Caroline's address?"

"Probably here, somewhere. Why?"

Elijah watched as his sister scribbled down an address. "I would like to speak to her."

* * *

Caroline was surprise when she came home after the school day was over and saw Elijah waiting for her outside her apartment door. "Oh, hi Elijah have you've been waiting long?" she clicked the door open. "Come on in."

"Thank you, Caroline no I just arrived. I'm sorry to barge in like this." Elijah said apologetic as the blond let him in. "I just needed to talk to someone who knows more about Katherine than my sister does."

Caroline sighed as she placed her bag on the kitchen counter and handed Elijah a water bottle. "Let me guess, she's been ignoring you too. I've tried calling her a few times, but I've been so busy with parent-teacher conferences this week than I haven't had a chance."

"Yes, me too my shifts have been crazy." He sat in a stool. He couldn't believe he was actually taking his little sister's advice. It might be crazy enough to actually work. "My sister told me something that may take Katherine's mind off Emma, and Damon, and her sister. But since you're her best friend I wanted to ask you if you thought it was a good idea."

Caroline nodded. "I'm all ears."

"My sister suggested that I take Katherine on a vacation to get her mind off things, I could probably take a few days off work as well as Katherine." He said slowly. "Since the weather is finally warm enough she mentioned once that she always wanted to go to Cancun. Though, I don't know if I'm being too forward since technically we're just friends."

"That's a great idea!" Caroline's cheery mood instantly darkened. "But knowing Katherine you're going to probably have to hog tie her to get her on the plane."

Elijah chuckled. "Believe me, I'll risk it."

Caroline squeezed his hand. "Thanks for doing this, not a lot of people would and Kat's life is a mess right now. She's lucky to have a good friend like you."

Elijah sighed. "Well, let's just hope it actually works."

-End of Chapter Twelve-


	13. Chapter 13

**13**

"Are you ready?" Caroline faced Elijah with a determine expression on her face. She was holding a small bag with Katherine's favorite goodies-chocolate, her favorite shade of lip gloss, and her favorite magazine.

Elijah smiled. "Caroline, we're visiting Katherine. Not robbing a bank."

"Actually I think robbing a bank is safer than dealing with Katherine right now."

Elijah looked puzzled. "Does she get into these moods often?"

Caroline shook her head. "Oh, no they're rare, but when they do-"she trailed off as she put the key in the keyhole. "Just come inside."

They entered the townhouse and Marie obviously desperate for affection started jumping up and down. Caroline giggled as she petted the white kitty. "Well, what do you know she likes you?"

"Actually, I think she likes everyone." He looked around the townhouse that looked empty. It didn't really look clean, it was clear that Katherine hadn't even let the cleaning lady come this week. There were empty fast food container on the kitchen counter and sweaters draped over an armchair.

"Since when does Katherine Pierce eat junk food?" Caroline murmured to herself as she put the empty food containers in the trash and wiped down the kitchen counter. "She hates that stuff." She told a confused Elijah.

"Is she even here?" he asked puzzled.

"I don't know and even if she was I doubt she would answer." Caroline started walking up the stairs liked she owned the house and Elijah meekly followed. Caroline pushed the door open of Katherine's bedroom and Caroline practically pulled Elijah inside along with her.

To say that Katherine's room was messy was being kind. It looked like she hadn't bothered making the bed for days and there were clothes are over the floor. This surprise Caroline because even though her friend wasn't a neat freak like her, she still liked to keep her things pretty tidy.

Katherine was on the bed recently showered with her hair in a bun and dressed in sweatpants and t-shirt. She was eating a bag of potato chips.

"Wow, you've really gone off the deep end, you hate chips." Caroline took the chips from Katherine. "You told me they cause you breakouts."

"I like them now," Katherine said not caring that Caroline and Elijah were in her messy house. It was their problem, they had come barging in. "What are you two doing here?"

"Um," Caroline bit her pinky nail.

"You haven't been answering our calls."

"Yes, Elijah that is what people do when they don't walk to talk to somebody." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Look, I get it that you guys are worried about me or whatever, but I'm in no mood to deal with the friendship therapy."

"Look, Kat," Caroline sat at the edge of the bed. "We know that this whole thing with Emma and Damon and Eloise has you a little bit over the edge. But we're worried about you and we want to help you and Elijah had a great idea-Elijah?"

Elijah sucked in his breath. He had no idea how Katherine was going to react to this, probably not in a good way. "I got two plane tickets for tomorrow to leave to Cancun. And I would really like it if you joined me."

Katherine's face softened a little. "Elijah, that is very nice of you but-"

"I'm not taking no for an answer." He crossed his arms over his chest. "So pack a bag for tomorrow or I swear I will do it myself."

Katherine narrowed her eyes. "Why are you doing this? Why can't you just accept the fact that I want to be alone, you guys don't need to be so stubborn."

"Oh, I'm not being the stubborn one." Elijah murmured as he patted Caroline's shoulder. "Thank you, Caroline and I'll see you tomorrow, Miss Pierce."

Katherine waved at him sarcastically.

* * *

"Oh, come on stop pouting!" Caroline said cheerfully as she started throwing blouses over her shoulder so that Katherine could start packing them. "I would kill for the chance of a handsome doctor taking me on vacation to Cancun of all places."

"Then you go." Katherine moodily replied as she stuffed the blouses inside the suitcase not even bothering to fold them. She couldn't believe that Elijah and Caroline were starting an intervention of some kind and forcing her on to go on the vacation.

Sure, it was a nice gesture and all and Katherine was acting like a total brat, but didn't they understand that she didn't want to go. She just wanted to stay home under the covers and not come out.

But apparently she wasn't going to get her wish.

"I'm not the one who is suicidal." Caroline blurted out without thinking.

Katherine's face darkened. "Did he say that? Did he say I'm suicidal?"

"No." she shook her head quickly. "That came out wrong, what I'm trying to say is that he's worried about you, we all are. He just thinks that this vacation will help take your mind off things. Just try and be a good sport about it Katherine."

Katherine sighed as she started re-folding the blouses. "You're right, I can't be wallowing in self-pity, I'm going to try and get a new fresh start in life or whatever."

Caroline squealed as she hugged her. Seriously, sometimes Caroline still acted like a teenager in high school. "That's the spirit! You'll have fun, I promise."

She went to Katherine's closet and picked out a bunch of lacy underthings such as panties and bras and nightgowns that Katherine rarely wore. She usually only liked wearing sexy underthings when she was dating and since the last jerk she had dated had been Mason Lockwood she hadn't really gotten excited over the idea of dating again.

Caroline dropped them on top of the suitcase.

"Um, Caroline," Katherine held up a lacy, black thong. "What is this?"

"You never know what's going to happen!" Caroline said urgently. "Either way you need sexy underwear."

Katherine rolled her eyes imagining herself actually wearing this on her friends' vacation with Elijah. "Have you meet Elijah he's not that type of guy."

"He doesn't look like that type of guy," Caroline corrected. "But you know what they say, the innocent looking ones are the most wild."

-End of Chapter Thirteen-

Vacation time in the next chapter!


	14. Chapter 14

**14**

"Elijah," Eloise was slightly surprised when she opened the door and saw Elijah standing there. The only times that Elijah had visited her Katherine had always come with him. "Hello."

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Pierce." Elijah said politely. "I am very sorry that I didn't call before, but I was wondering if I could speak to you."

Eloise nodded as she opened the door further. "Come on in."

Elijah sat across from Eloise as she put a tray of cookies in the coffee table across from them. Even though it had been a week since the funeral she was still in her mourning clothes. "Did Katherine send you?"

"No, she doesn't know I'm here. Caroline is with her." He said sympathetically. "She isn't doing too well either. Has she come at all?"

Eloise sighed as she took a cookie. "No, I suspect that she is still angry with me. It's going to take time."

"Well, I just came to inform you that she and I are going to Cancun for a few days so for you not to worry and if anything happens, please feel free to call me."

Eloise looked surprised. "Are you two-"

"No, we're just friends," Elijah corrected. "We both need a distraction after everything that has happened."

Eloise nodded. "Thank you for telling me."

Elijah stood up and was about to leave when Eloise spoke up again. "My granddaughter may be stubborn and proud, but she is a good girl Dr. Mikaelson. . .just take care of her, please."

Elijah nodded as he closed the door. "I will."

* * *

They took the 9AM flight to Cancun the next morning. Katherine slid in next to the window seat and pulled out her laptop and started writing at rapid speed.

Elijah closed down the laptop. "You are not seriously working during vacation are you?"

Katherine opened the computer back up. "In case you've forgotten I was MIA for two weeks, your sister may have let me go on vacation with you, but that does not mean she won't kill me when I come back."

"Actually, I think Rebekah may be capable of murder."

"Let's just hope that she doesn't murder Stefan." She leaned back in her chair. "I've been meaning to ask you why you wanted to become a doctor, I mean I became a fashion editor because I love fashion, but I doubt you were able to do much when you were five."

"Well, I'm not really sure." He mused. "I guess I just like helping people."

"Well, you're doing a good job so far, maybe you should take Caroline as your assistant." She joked. "But really nothing miraculous happened to you?"

Elijah hesitated. "Well, my little brother Henrik died of cancer when he was twelve. I guess that motivated me somewhat to become a doctor."

The smile disappeared from Katherine's face. "Oh, Elijah I'm so sorry. I'm so stupid, I shouldn't have-"

"It's ok, it happened years ago." He patted her hand. "You shouldn't feel bad. You should probably get some sleep, it's a long trip."

Katherine closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come.

"Katherine, Katherine," someone was gently shaking her. "We're here."

Katherine slowly sat up wiping some drool from her mouth. She rubbed her eyes, had she really fallen asleep on Elijah's shoulder? With her luck she had probably drooled all over him, but Elijah didn't seem to mind.

"I fell asleep on you, I'm so sorry." She said. "Bad travel buddy."

Elijah shrugged. "I don't mind," he smirked. "I'm sure nobody heard the growling noises."

"I don't growl!"

"Yes, you do a little in your sleep." Elijah insisted. "Like a small animal and you keep moving your hands as if someone was attacking you."

Katherine flushed red and refused to be embarrassed. "I do not growl, Elijah Mikaelson."

* * *

They were staying at a small, cozy hotel that reminded Katherine of a little villa, it was called La Sirena (The Mermaid.) The hotel was surrounded by little villas that looked like small huts and small personal apartment and painted white with all kinds of traditional Mexican decorations such as bright, watercolor painting and woven baskets to store books in.

The sun was beating down on Katherine even though it was only afternoon and Katherine could see the beautiful, crystal blue water from the hotel.

"I'm guessing you like it," Elijah teased her when he saw Katherine's curious expression.

"Maybe." She was not going to let Elijah win her that easily. "Let's just check in first."

"As you wish." They walked over to the checking desk where a tall man was waiting for them. Since Elijah's Spanish was horrible he decided to try his luck with English. "Hello, I have a reservation under Elijah Mikaelson. For two rooms."

The man nodded and spoke in broken English. "Ah, yes Mister Mikaelson, welcome to La Sirena hotel, you and your _esposa."_

"No soy su esposa, somos solamente amigos." (I'm not his wife, we're are just friends.) Katherine responded.

The manager didn't look like he believe them, but he went back his computer.

"Why didn't you tell me you could speak, Spanish?" Elijah asked incredulously.

Katherine shrugged innocently as she took a mint from the bowl. "You never asked. It's one of my many charms."

"_Hay un problema_-we have a problem." The managed frowned. "I don't know what happened but only one room got booked."

-End of Chapter Fourteen-


	15. Chapter 15

**15**

"I'm sorry, what?" Elijah demanded. "There must be a mistake, I'm fairly certain that two separate rooms were booked."

"I'm very sorry, sir." The manager said looking apologetic as he looked at the computer screen again. "This almost never happens, I offer you my sincerest apologies, but there are no other rooms available."

Katherine placed a hand on Elijah's arm. Honestly, she didn't know what Elijah was getting so worked up about. "Elijah, it's fine." She turned towards the manager. "_Tomaremos el cuarto."_ (We'll take the room.)

"Excellent," the manager looked relieved, the clock behind him was already hitting ten 'clock and Katherine was already feeling the jet lag, every bone in her body hurt. The manager handed Elijah one of the keys and Katherine the other one. "Your room is located on the sixth floor, room 638, and please enjoy your stay."

Once the bell boy grabbed their suitcases they headed towards the elevator. Once the gold colored doors closed, Elijah looked back at her and said apologetically. "I'm very sorry, Katherine. I really didn't expect this to happen-"

"Elijah its fine," she insisted, sounding a bit amused about how worked up he was. Usually she was the one stressing over things. "We're both grow ups, we can share a room. We're friends right?"

He nodded. "Of course." But that still didn't settle the nervous pit in his stomach.

When they reached their room, Katherine pushed the door open while Elijah tipped the bell boy. Her brown eyes widened in amazement, the room had a bathroom, a little sitting area, a walk in closet, and the bedroom with the one bed. The room was decorated in a sea theme with starfish, mermaids, and seashells splattered everywhere and the walls were painted a nice sea blue color.

"This place is beautiful," her face lightened and she smiled. She hadn't smiled like that since Emma's funeral. She gave Elijah a hug. "Thank you."

Elijah rubbed her back and rummage a hand through her messy curls. "What for?" he murmured.

She pulled back. "For teaching me that everything doesn't have to stay sad all the time, even though life kind of sucks." She bit her lip and trailed off as she grabbed her suitcase. "I'm going to go take a shower, I'll be right out." She blurted out.

And in the blink of an eye Katherine had stuffed her suitcase in the walking closet and had shut herself in the bathroom.

When Elijah heard the shower running he pulled out his phone and dialed his sister, the one who had made the actually hotel reservations because Elijah had been too busy to do them in the first place. He was going to kill her.

"Hello dear brother," Rebekah said picking up on the first ring and obviously knowing the kind of conversation that she and Elijah were going to have. "How's Cancun? I hope it's sunny. Oh, no wait its night over there, right?"

"Really, you pick now to have this conversation?" Elijah hissed over the phone, trying not to shout so that Katherine wouldn't overhear. "Because it's funny, little sister I remember you telling me that you booked two bedrooms for me and Katherine, imagine my surprise when we arrive and the manager tells us only room was booked. Do you care to comment?"

"What are the odds?"

"Don't pretend," he sighed as he sat on the couch. "I know you only booked one room. The question is why."

"Because it's obvious that both of you are too stubborn to budge," Rebekah said as she clicked on the keyboard on her computer. "You two went from practically glaring at each other to actually being friends, it's obvious that you care about her otherwise you wouldn't have come to my office to interrogate me- consider this my good deed of the day to make you a more special kind of friends. Besides rooms were expensive, and I know that you're the type of guy to not let Katherine pay for anything. You are welcome."

"You're supposed to be my sister and Katherine's friend, not a matchmaker!" he snapped.

Elijah could practically hear Rebekah roll her eyes. "Sorry, besides stop being such a baby about it. It's only for a few days. Besides you'll thank me later. Have fun on your trip, only not too much fun-or on second though go crazy, maybe it will help you stop being so uptight."

"I am not uptight, Rebekah-"

"Whatever, just don't get her pregnant all right?" She singsong as she hung up.

Elijah rubbed his temples, why did Rebekah have to be such a hopeless romantic? But it wasn't sharing the room with Katherine that was the problem, it was the other thing that happened to him occasionally during the nights.

* * *

Katherine felt the warm water hit her shoulder blades as she washed her hair with her strawberry scented shampoo. She closed her eyes lost in her own thoughts. _You're just sleeping_ _in_ _the same room, Pierce_ she scolded herself, _stop making it such a big deal._

Even though she repeated the mantra in her head, she couldn't help but feel a little bit nervous.

She turned off the shower and started drying her hair. She was going to have fun and she was going to enjoy her life instead of wallowing in self-pity.

* * *

When Elijah stepped out of the bathroom after Katherine, he found her curled up on the bed and watching the television dressed in a pair of pajama shorts with Hello Kitty's face stamped all over them and a matching top. It felt weird looking at her dressed so casual, he was used to her dressing in heels and skirts. "What are you doing?"

"Watching the Big Bang Theory in Spanish." She replied. "Though they talk faster that I can translate to." She smirked. "I think this is the first time I've see you in pajamas you can even make casual clothes look formal."

Elijah smiled a little at the comment and return his look to the TV. "You actually like the Big Bang Theory?"

"Oh, come on you're not a fan of Sheldon that guy is hilarious."

"Not really, I find it kind of silly."

Katherine rolled her eyes playfully. "Fine, what kind of shows do you enjoy?"

"Medical documentaries mostly or the History channel."

"Wow, thrilling." She turned off the TV and looked at the bed. "So, you sleep on the left and I'll sleep on the right, ok?"

Elijah looked startled, momentarily forgetting the fact that they were supposed to share a bed. "Oh, no you can sleep on the bed. I'll sleep on the couch."

"Elijah, really I don't mind sharing a bed." She insisted.

"And I don't mind sleeping on the couch." He shot back as he took a pillow and an extra blanket from the closet. "Good night, Katherine."

* * *

Elijah grumbled in his sleep as he started switching sides on the couch, he closed his eyes again hoping for peaceful sleep, but he was out of luck. His dreams kept haunting him. They kept haunting him constantly. This is why he hated sleep. He couldn't sleep.

As soon as he closed his eyes everyone that he had seen die, Henrik, Emma, former patients seem to come back to haunt him.

"Elijah, Elijah." Someone was shaking him. Elijah opened his eyes and saw Katherine staring at him with a concerned expression. "Are you ok?"

"Katherine?" he mumbled. "What are you doing up? Go back to sleep."

"I heard you crying out in your sleep." Katherine insisted, her brown eyes filled with worry. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine." He insisted. Damn it, he had lost control again and let the stupid nightmares affect him. Katherine didn't look like she believed him. "Go back to sleep, please."

-End of Chapter Fifteen-

Glad you guys are enjoying the vacation chapter :)


	16. Chapter 16

**16**

The next morning Katherine and Elijah were sitting in the hotel's restaurant having breakfast. It was obvious to Katherine that Elijah was doing everything he could to avoid talking about the nightmares that he had had. Not that Katherine was buying it.

Katherine put down her fork on her plate. She had been thinking about how to bring the topic up that she had hardly eaten her breakfast.

"Elijah, we need to talk about this."

Elijah didn't bother to look at her. "About what?"

Katherine raised an eyebrow as she squeezed Elijah's hand. Elijah looked up at her with big puppy dog eyes that begged her not to mention it that Katherine almost backed off. Almost. "Those nightmares do they happen every night?"

"No, not every night." He said, not really expanding on the topic. "Only sometimes, I didn't mean to scare you."

"I'm not scared." She reassured him, trying to get a better read on his face. "Just worried. Why do you have them? What are they about? You can talk to me, I'm willing to listen."

"I'm sure you are, Miss Pierce," Elijah said tightly, obviously getting annoyed. "But I'm perfectly capable of handling it on my own. Being a doctor has its consequences and you have to watch a lot of people die, it's not exactly easy."

"I know that, but-"

"Katherine," he said angrily, in a voice she had never heard him use before. "I'm not going to ask again, can we please not talk about it and just focus on relaxing? The whole point was for you to have a good time, not for you to be stressing about me."

"Because Elijah, like it or not I actually like you now." Katherine shot back frustrated. "You're worried about me and you have helped me out dozens of times, why is it ok for you to help me, but not the other way around? I want to help you, Elijah."

"Because I'm the doctor," he said stiffly. "I'm the one who is supposed to help others, not the other way around." Before Katherine could protest, Elijah stood up. "I'll be right back, I'm going to go pay the bill."

* * *

Elijah tapped his fingers on the counter nervously while he waited for his change. Day 1 and their vacation was already ruined. He ran a hand through his neatly combed hair. He had had these nightmares for a long time that he never really questioned them. He would just get out of bed and act like it was nothing.

But why did Katherine had to make it so difficult to forget?

He didn't know when exactly he had started having nightmares, he remembered having them briefly when Henrik was dying of cancer and the dreams seemed to get worse when he started working at the hospital and be constantly surrounded by death.

But Elijah loved his job and he was good at it. So if he had to risk a few nights of restless sleep so be it.

"_Su cambio."_ (Your change) the woman said handing him back a bill and a handful of Mexican pesos.

"Thank you." Elijah hesitated. "I'm sorry, do you speak English?"

"A little," the woman responded slowly.

"What place do you recommend that we visit?" he asked. "I came here with a friend, something enjoyable-but not romantic."

"Xcaret Park." The woman responded in broken English. "Mexican Disneyland, only more beautiful, lots of nature, you can swim. Enjoy yourselves. A tourist bus leaves in fifteen minutes."

* * *

While Elijah went to go pay the bill, Katherine pulled out her cell phone and quickly dialed Caroline's number even though she knew her friend was probably enjoying her lunch at school right about now.

"Hi, Katherine." Caroline said cheerfully. "How is it? Is it really as beautiful as they say? Do-"

"I really don't have time to talk, Caroline." Katherine looked over her shoulder, but saw that Elijah was still paying the bill. "But I need to tell you something about Elijah."

"I'm all ears."

"We had to share a room-"

"Wait," Caroline practically choked on her salad. "You need to share a room? How did that happened?"

"That's not important." She said exasperated. "Besides Elijah, slept on the couch, but he woke up in the middle of the night thrashing all over the place. I guess he was having nightmares, but he won't tell me about them."

"Some things are personal, Kat." Caroline said quietly.

"I know that. I just hate that he won't tell me about them, I mean I know we don't know each other too well, but," she sighed. "I just wished he could trust me, God knows he's heard me babbling all the time."

"It's not easy for guys to talk, sometimes." She said. "Just give it time, Kat and don't pressure him. Look, I have to go, but just enjoy yourself and give Elijah time. It mustn't be easy for him."

"Thanks for your help, couldn't have done it without you." Katherine mumbled.

Caroline squeaked. "Sorry. Have fun!"

Katherine managed to pretend to be interested in the remainder of her breakfast by the time that Elijah returned. He seemed to be in a much better mood. "You ready? Grab your purse."

Katherine grabbed her turquoise purse and looked confused as she and Elijah walked out of the restraint and into the hotel's parking lot. "Where are we going?"

He smiled as he held the door open. "Xcaret Park."

-End of Chapter Sixteen-

Kalijah fluff in the next chapter!


	17. Chapter 17

**17**

Xcaret Park was possibly the most beautiful place that Katherine had ever seen. It was a large natural based park with hundreds of activities from snorkeling, swimming, and inspecting ancient Mayan ruins. There were dozens of restaurants, stores, and mini museums. Tourist guides and workers greeted Katherine and Elijah as they walked through the gate.

Katherine paused when she saw a bamboo stand, there were three colorful parrots positioned on them. She grabbed Elijah's arm. "Look, Elijah they're so cute."

"Katherine, they bite." Elijah pointed out. He wasn't too fond of birds.

"No, look they're sweet," Katherine cooed as the young girl guarding the birds, placed one of the parrots on Katherine's shoulder. She scratched the parrot on the head. The parrot playfully bit her finger. "He's such a sweetie, aren't you? Do you want to hold it, Elijah?"

"Um, no thanks." He said as he backed away.

Katherine thanked the woman as the parrot flew from her shoulder towards the baboon stand.

"I can't believe you're afraid of birds." Katherine snickered as they continued on their walk.

"I am not afraid of birds," Elijah defended himself. "I just don't think they are the most pleasant creatures to be around. What should we do next?" he looked at his map and smiled. "They have a canopy tour here, we should try that."

"What's a canopy tour?"

Elijah looked at her in surprise. "You've never gone on a canopy tour? I've only done it once when I went to Puerto Vallarta during my senior year of college."

Katherine snorted. "You're afraid on a six inch parrot, believe me you have no right to criticize me."

"Sorry," he said as he looked up. There were two long wires that seemed to go around the park. "Look up."

Katherine looked up and gaped as a second later two girls about the age of thirteen came swigging down the wires with only what seemed like a type of thick rope around the waist and midsection and sprouting yellow helmets. They were screaming and laughing at the same time. "Yeah, I'm not going."

"Come on, take a risk." Katherine looked doubtful. "Don't tell me, Katherine Pierce of all people is actually afraid of something."

"I'm not afraid of anything." She replied hotly.

* * *

"Are you sure this is safe?"

"Quite safe, ma'am."

"And are you sure that these ropes won't break and I won't fall towards my untimely death?"

"Um, yes ma'am."

"You just said um, you don't sound very confident."

"Katherine."

"Sorry. Fear of heights."

Katherine grabbed the rope that was hanging above the wire tightly even though her feet were still firmly planted on the small wooden deck.

"Katherine," Elijah said, trying not to laugh. But he rarely saw a frighten expression on Katherine Pierce's face. "It's perfectly safe, dozens of people have done this before."

Katherine nodded as she closed her eyes. "Ok, I'm ready." The canopy tour guide looked doubtful, put pushed her and a second later the deck below her feet had disappear and when she looked down, she could see the people below her as well as the crystal blue water. She looked at Elijah swinging next to her who was grinning at her. "How is it?"

"Amazing." She choked out. "Simply amazing."

* * *

They arrived back at the hotel around eleven, but strangely neither Katherine nor Elijah were tired and certainly not for sleep. She looked at him. "Let's go for a swim,"

"Now? Aren't the pools closed?"

Katherine shook her head as they got into the elevator and she pressed the button of the elevator for the doors to close. The exited on their floor. "Not until midnight." She opened the door of their hotel room and walked towards the walking closet and threw him his swimming shorts. "So get dressed."

A half an hour later, Elijah and Katherine walked towards the pool that seemed to be glowing. Elijah was dressed in the dark blue swimming shorts he rarely wore and Katherine was wearing a simple black bikini.

Elijah looked at the empty pool. "There's no one here."

"Who cares?" Katherine rolled her eyes as she jumped in the pool. She immediately regretted it when the cold water touched her skin. "Oh, god it's cold!" she splashed him. "Come get wet with me."

Elijah smirked as he followed Katherine's routine and jumped in the pool the same way that she had done it, splashing her. Katherine sputtered. "You're such a jerk."

"You're the one that started it," he pointed out. His dark hair was sticking all over the place.

Katherine laughed as she ran a hand through his hair. "I like your hair like this. It's so spiky."

Elijah smiled, showing off his white tithe. She smiled back, damn it his smile was contagious. He place a hand on the small of her back and Katherine wrapped an arm around his neck. Elijah leaned forward and kissed her.

Much to his surprise, Katherine started kissing him back, a bit more aggressively. "I think that's enough swimming." She murmured between kisses. "Let's go back to the room. I'm suddenly very tired."

* * *

Elijah didn't know how he managed to get the door of their hotel room, open especially since he and Katherine hadn't stopped kissing. He didn't know what was wrong him, in any other occasion he would never dream about doing this. He wasn't that kind of person, hooking up with a friend. But it felt so good and it helped that Katherine had found many ways to persuade him.

Katherine wrapped both legs around his waist and wrapped her arms around his neck as she started kissing his neck. Elijah placed both hands on her waist before laying her on the bed, not caring that her hair was wet and that they were both wearing their wet swimsuits.

Elijah was about to untie Katherine's bikini top when he pulled back. "You sure you want to do this?"

Katherine placed both hands against each cheek and pulled him forward for a kiss. "I'm sure, now shut up and don't ruin the moment."

Elijah chuckled. "You know for someone who claims that she doesn't need a man in her life, you do like romance." He started pulling off the ribbons tying her bikini top.

"What can I say," she smirked back as she started pulling off his shorts. "I'm a sucker for a good romance story. Now kiss me and don't stop kissing me."

Elijah was only too happy to obey.

-End of Chapter Seventeen-


	18. Chapter 18

**18**

Elijah opened his eyes and stared at the blue ceiling. He saw his swim trunks, draped messily over a chair and then he remembered what happened. Last night. Between him and Katherine. His former patient.

He could curse himself for being so damn stupid and insensitive. Since when had he turned into one of those guys? The kind of guys that prey upon emotionally unstable and vulnerable women.

He was sure that Katherine was still shaken up about Emma's death, and that she had confused the fun they had been having on this trip for something else. And Elijah couldn't, no he wouldn't lead her on.

Elijah had to admit that she was a very pretty woman and that there was something about her that made her charming, and maybe Davina and Rebekah were right, there was something that Elijah liked about her. But he didn't want her to make that decision based on sex.

He laid back on the pillow. Though he had to admit that it had been pretty amazing sex. The last woman he had slept with had been his former girlfriend Hayley Marshall and they both knew how well that had lasted.

He shut his eyes shut, _stop thinking like that Elijah!_ He scolded himself_. You're a grown man_, _everything is not about sex!_

Katherine let out a little sigh in her sleep as she cuddled next to him and laid her head against his chest without once opening her eyes.

Elijah didn't want to disturb her, so he just placed the covers over her body so she wouldn't feel the slight chill. He wondered if he had, had the nightmares again. He didn't remember. And he hoped he hadn't. The last thing he wanted was for them to return to the topic of nightmares.

A half an hour later, Katherine finally opened her eyes sleepily. She smiled back at him. "Good morning,"

"Good morning." He cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. "Did you sleep well?"

Katherine pulled away the covers and started putting on a black lace bra. "Like a baby," she turned around. "The nightmares, you didn't have them last night."

"I didn't." he confirmed. "I told you, they only happen every once in a while."

Katherine hesitated, unable to stop herself as she crawled in bed next to him. "What are they about? The patients that you lost?"

"Sometimes. Not always though, they are about a number of different things."

"Your parents? Your family?" Katherine bit her lip. "Is that why you never want to talk about your parents? You and Rebekah never talk about them."

Elijah closed his eyes, trying not to snap at her. "My parents are difficult people, Katherine. So yes, that's why Rebekah and I decided not to talk about them. Can we talk about something else, please?"

Katherine nodded as she rested her head against his chest. "Why do you have to be so stubborn?"

Elijah chuckled. "I'm stubborn? Have you meet you?"

"Oh, please from what I've seen you're worse than me." Now for the awkward part. She stared back at him. "So last night . . . it was fun, wasn't it?"

Elijah pushed back a stray curl and smirked. "It was very fun."

Katherine giggled as she rested her hand on his bicep. "Good, because we need to talk. About us." She looked at him. "Are we in a relationship?"

Elijah shrugged. "I don't know. Do you want it to be a relationship?"

Katherine didn't speak for a moment, until she smiled. "I wouldn't mind." She looked at him, almost shyly. "Last night, it just felt so right. It felt good. Like it was meant to be. How about you? Do you want to be in a relationship with me, even though we both know I'm not the easiest person to deal with?"

Elijah squeezed her hand. "I would like nothing more, Miss Pierce." He pulled her close and kissed her gently as Katherine started unhooking her bra.

* * *

"Yummy, this is good what was it again?" Katherine bit into a tostada that was carrying tiny shrimp, diced tomatoes, and diced cucumbers.

"Shrimp ceviche." Elijah said as he added more ketchup to the shrimp cocktail. "The cocktail is pretty good as well."

"I've gone to several Mexican food restaurants in New York, but it's nowhere near as good as this." Katherine stared at the buffet trays in front of her carrying all kinds of plates from traditional Mexican food to exotic seafood plates. "I wished our food was this colorful."

Elijah picked up a small, round cake by the desserts table. It was round and a beige color with a little sugar sprinkled on top. "What is this?"

"Mazapan." Katherine responded as she took another little cake. "Mexican candy, I've tried it before. It's good."

Elijah took a small bite of the round cake. It instantly melted on his toung. It tasted like vanilla and peanuts. "Hey, this is pretty good-what are you doing?"

While he had been savoring the treat, Katherine had been stuffing as many Mazapanes as she could into her purse. "Shh," she winked as she cocked her head towards the servers. "What they don't know, won't hurt them. Besides this is better than the candy back home."

-End of Chapter Eighteen-

Sorry, that I haven't updated, I'm glad you guys like the Kalijah. So Kalijah is now officially a couple. And in case any of you guys are curious, I went to Cancun and Xcaret Park three years ago, and honestly it's one of the most beautiful places I've gone too. If you ever have a chance to visit I highly recommend you do, you won't regret it :)


	19. Chapter 19

**19**

"Mr. Howard, can you please lift your leg a little? Do you feel any pain?" the man sitting on the bed lifted his leg a little and let out a groan. Elijah nodded as he wrote on his clipboard. "Ok, that's enough, I believe that your leg is broken, but we're going to send you to do x-rays in just a few minutes. All right?"

Mr. Howard nodded as he laid back down on his bed, exhausted.

Elijah closed the curtain around the small bed and headed to tell one of the nurses to take the man to x-rays when he ran into Davina and Stefan.

"Stefan, Davina." Elijah smiled as the three of them continued walking down the hallway. "How are you?"

"Well, I haven't dealt with crying children at all this morning so, so far pretty well." Stefan smiled at him. "I haven't seen you around, did you switch your shifts?"

Elijah shook his head as he handed his clipboard to the secretary behind the desk. "Mr. Howard needs x-rays done in room 456." He turned back to them. "I actually took a few vacation days. Katherine and I went on vacation, so that she could take her mind off things. I'm surprise Rebekah didn't mention it."

"She didn't." Stefan looked puzzled, but he quickly tried to mask it. His pager started buzzing. "Well, that's me, I better get going. Welcome back, Elijah."

"Thanks. I'll see you later."

As soon as Stefan left, Davina whacked him with her clipboard.

"Ow," Elijah rubbed his arm where the clipboard had left a dent. "What was that for?"

"Hello?" Davina's green eyes narrowed at him, as if she were mentally calling him the most stupid man on the planet. "You went on vacation with your former patient and you didn't bothered telling me until now? What is wrong with you?"

"I didn't think I had to share every detail of my personal life with you, Davina." Elijah teased her back.

Davina scoffed. "Of course you do. You rarely make the move towards a girl and when you do I consider it a rare event. So, tell me everything? Where did you go? Did you have fun? If you know what I mean."

"Claire, Mikaelson," Dr. Alaric Saltzman, the hospital manager barked. "Back to work, you can talk about your love lives later, this isn't Grey's Anatomy."

* * *

"Here are the photographs of the jewels for the July issue and we already half-finished the editorial part for the fashion issue." Katherine neatly placed them on Rebekah's desk.

Rebekah grabbed them and neatly put them in a folder. "So I imagine this means that you are ready to return to work with no more further interruptions. I can't give my fashion editor any more vacation days."

Katherine flushed, feeling guilty, she had missed three weeks of work. Any other person would had fired Katherine already. "Yes, I'm sorry for being so MIA, things have been complicated." She trailed off. "But I promise, no more slacking off, I'm ready to work."

"Good," she threw her a mischievous smile. "So I'm guessing you and my brother had fun this week, he was practically skipping when I saw him yesterday."

Katherine blushed. "Yes, it was great. Very beautiful."

"I'm glad. I give you my blessing, though if you hurt him I will personally kick your ass," she looked at her watch. "I have a meeting in ten minutes, anything else, Pierce?"

Katherine opened her mouth to tell Rebekah about Elijah's nightmares, but then closed her mouth. Elijah would kill her, not to mention that it was none of her business. "No, thank you."

* * *

"Mint chocolate chip or rocky road?" Caroline opened the fridge of the supermarket refrigerator, releasing the cold, air. She was holding two ice cream cartons for Katherine to inspect. They had decided to have a sleepover at Katherine's house like they used to do to catch up with their lives since they hadn't been able to hang out for days.

Katherine cocked her head to the side. In the shopping cart Caroline had already added whatever they needed to make sundaes, which included sprinkles, chocolate sauce, cherries, and whipped cream.

Katherine pulled out another ice cream carton. "How about vanilla? That's always a classic. Besides I hate rocky road."

Caroline sighed. "Vanilla is boring."

"Fine, you get whatever you want and I'll get vanilla." Katherine said as she placed the carton inside the cart. "Then we can both get what we want-let's hurry, I want to beat the traffic back home. New York is not fun with traffic."

Once they got back to Katherine's townhouse, they started putting the different ice cream flavors into bowls. Caroline licked her pinky finger before she practically shouted. "Oh my god, when are you going to tell me what happened between you and Elijah on vacation? I'm dying."

"I didn't know I had to speak about my sex life with you." Katherine said sarcastically as she bit into a cherry.

"Don't give me that," Caroline rolled her eyes. "We have been friends for ages, and since I'm practically living the life of a nun it's your turn to share the details."

Katherine wasn't usually a prude, but she didn't want to discuss her sex life with Caroline, even if she was her best friend. She liked the idea of just her and Elijah knowing what happened. "Ok, yes Elijah and I slept together, yes we're in a relationship now, but I'm sorry Care that's all you're getting."

Caroline looked disappointed.

Before Caroline could protest, Katherine turned to her. "Hey, you know how to cook right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, Elijah has done so much for me, I want to do something in return." She bit her pinky nail. "And since he practically eats take out every night, I was thinking I could make him a nice, homemade dinner."

Caroline almost spit out her ice cream. "Um, Katherine no offense, but you barely know how to turn on the microwave. How are you going cook an entire meal?"

Katherine looked up hopefully. "I was hoping you could help me out. Give me a few tips."

Caroline smiled. "Fine, even if my own, dear friend won't tell me what happened between her and the hot doctor even though I'm their biggest cheerleaders, I will help you cook something nice for him." She paused. "On second thought, maybe it's better that I cook and you just buy a cake and sit there and look pretty. That way there are no accidents."

"Very funny."

-End of Chapter Nineteen-


	20. Chapter 20

**20**

"Dinner? Tonight?" Elijah looked over his shoulder to make sure that Alaric wasn't seeing him. The guy could yell his head off for almost the smallest thing. "Sure, what's the occasion?"

"No occasion," Katherine said as she juggled her cell phone in one hand and two grocery bags in the other. She placed them with a thump on her kitchen counter. "I just thought it was my turn to treat you for a change. I'm cooking spaghetti and meatballs and maybe a cake if you're lucky, so bring an empty stomach."

"You can cook?" Elijah sounded surprised over the phone.

Katherine rolled her eyes. "Of course I can cook! And I take offense to that."

"Sorry," Elijah chuckled at the other end.

"So will you be there? Six' o clock."

Elijah saw Alaric coming from the corner of his eye. "Listen, Kat I have to go. I'll see you tonight. Bye."

* * *

At four o'clock Katherine neatly set down the ingredients she would need garlic, parmesan, noodles, beef to make the meatballs out off, canned sauce, and the ingredients for the chocolate cake. She was glad that her house was big enough to have a separate kitchen and dining room. That way she could make sure that she could make as much as a mess as she wanted too. Katherine had already decorated the dining room nice. Now if only Caroline would show up.

She was growing worried and impatient when the clock hit the five' o clock mark. Elijah would be here in an hour. When her cell phone rang Katherine hissed. "Caroline, where are you? Elijah is going to be here any minute."

"Kat, I know you probably going to want to kill me, but I won't be able to make it," Caroline said sounding hurried. "My mom just called, my dad just fell of a ladder, he's fine but he sprained his ankle so I need to go home to see if she needs anything. I'm really sorry, but can't you call Elijah and cancel?"

"I can't cancel, Caroline!" she said as she looked at the clock 5:15. "Elijah is going to be here in less than an hour." She rummage a hand through her hair. "Never mind, I can handle it. I can read a cook book, I sure it's not hard to actually cook a meal."

* * *

There were plates, opened boxes, dirty dishes, and sauces and pieces of meat all over the floor, kitchen counters, cabinets, stove, and even the refrigerator. The noodles were cooking in a pot on the stove though they were starting to look like taffy. Katherine nervously looked at the cook book that had been covered with milk. Why did the instructions have to be so complicated?

She tried to make the beef into little balls like the book instructed, but her hands just felt messy and sticky. The doorbell rang.

"Crap, crap." She murmured as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her brown hair was tangled, there was sauce on her cheek and her apron was beyond dirty, but thankfully her clothes looked decent even though she was just dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. She dropped he apron on the floor, put her curls back into a ponytail, and closed the door of the kitchen so that Elijah didn't see the chaos. But she was hoping most of all that no one got food poisoning.

She opened the door and flashed him a smile. "Hi, right on time."

"These are for you," he handed her a small bouquet of flowers. He pointed to her cheek. "You have some sauce on your-"

Katherine quickly wiped it away. "Come on in."

Elijah nodded as Marie greeted him by rubbing on his leg. Elijah was about to pet the cat when he sniffed the air. He frowned. "Is something burning?"

The noodles. The cake. "Oh, no." Katherine ran into the kitchen, not caring that Elijah would see it and saw that there was steam coming from the practically burnt pot and noodles, not to mention the cake that was practically black as charcoal right about now. Katherine quickly turned off the stove and refused to face Elijah. She wanted to die of embarrassment right now.

Elijah looked around the extremely messy kitchen. "I thought you said you knew how to cook."

"I do." She lied. "Caroline was just going to help me out a little."

Elijah looked at her quizzically.

She flushed even redder. "Ok, she was supposed to do the whole thing." She nervously clutched a kitchen towel. "It's just I wanted to do something nice for you and cooking is the only thing that came to mind even though, I'm a horrible cook. I am so sorry, Elijah."

Elijah softened as he petted her cheek and kissed her. "Don't be, that is the sweetest thing that anybody has done for me, or tried to anyway," he looked around the messy kitchen. "Though, you didn't have to go as far as to burning up your kitchen."

"It wasn't going to burn up!" she protested as she grabbed a Chinese's take out menu. "I'm guessing you would prefer Chinese."

"Definitely."

As Katherine placed their order, Elijah tried to clean as best as he could, thought it was nearly impossible because he always felt like he was stepping on something. When Katherine finished placing their order she sighed. "The food will be here in half an hour and you don't have to do that, I'll clean it by myself."

"I rather not have any more accidents, Katherine no offense."

Katherine whacked him in the shoulder. "Very funny."

"Barely starting our relationship and already lying to me, Miss Pierce," Elijah teased her as he helped her clean up the kitchen. "Is this what I should expect from now on?"

She flushed as she started washing the dishes. "I wasn't lying . . . it was just expanding the truth a little."

Elijah raised an eyebrow.

"Ok, so I was lying. Sue me. I would be more concerned over the fact that you actually believe me when I told you-I know how to cook."

* * *

Forty five minutes later the kitchen was clean and Elijah and Kat were eating Chinese food in Katherine's living room, since they both didn't think it was necessary to eat in the dining room since they were eating out of cartons.

"So I'm guessing this beats the water spaghetti and the burnt cake that I was going to offer you, huh?" she bit into a dumpling.

"And I was looking forward to it. I needed an excuse not to go into work tomorrow." A pair of dark green books labeled photo albums stared back at him near the bookshelf. He pulled one out. "Oh, what is this?"

"Wait, no-"Katherine practically tackled him to the ground, but Elijah was too fast and he simply moved to the side and flipped open the photo album. He went through the first pages and Katherine wanted to die of embarrassment. There were pictures of when she was born at the hospital, as a baby, her first steps, and her first day of school. It was just like a collection of very embarrassing family photos. Elijah smiled when he stopped short in front of a five year old Katherine wearing a Tinkerbell costume.

"You make a very nice Tinkerbell."

"Shut up, I was in love with Peter Pan when I was five. I was convince we were going to get married." She snatched the album away from him. "And that's enough, I invited you to dinner not the walk of shame."

"Well since you almost intoxicated me, I think the least I deserve is for me to see your family pictures." Elijah smirked.

As a way of tactic, Katherine wrapped her arms around his neck and started kissing him. "I have something better that we can do."

"What's that?" Elijah asked between kisses as his hands rummaged under her blouse.

Katherine started leaving a trail of kisses down his neck. "Oh, I think you have a pretty good idea."

-End of Chapter Twenty-

So, yes dinner was a disaster, hope you enjoyed the chapter :)


	21. Chapter 21

**21**

Elijah was half sleepily watching the ten o'clock news when his house phone rang. He frowned, that was weird the hospital and everyone else who generally tried to reach him usually called him on his cell phone. Sometimes he even forgot he had installed a house phone.

He stood up and picked it up from where it had been resting on his kitchen counter. "Hello?"

"Dear?" the voice sounded high pitched and unclear at the other end. "Dear? Elijah, is that you?"

Elijah tried not to stiffen and hold any hostility in his tone as he calmly replied. "Hello, mother."

"Why didn't you answer?" Esther's tone sounded reproachful.

"I'm sorry," he said as he turned off the TV and sat on the couch, bracing himself for the worst. "A little late for you to be calling, isn't it?" his parents most of the time were in bed by nine.

Esther said at the other end. "It's only seven in San Diego," His parents had lived in New York and when Mikael had retired they had moved to San Diego, California for nicer weather, not that any of his children complained very much. They only rarely saw each other on Holidays and sometimes Elijah made an excuse not to go. "Did you just get home?"

"Yeah, around eight," he said. It wasn't like Esther to call to see how he was doing.

"Good, dear," Esther replied absentmindly, clearly not paying attention. "Listen, dear Mikael is having a reunion with his old college friends at the Yale Club this weekend in New York and we were hoping to have dinner with all three of you."

Elijah both looked and sounded surprised. He couldn't remember the last time that all three of them had, had dinner together. It had been years and all he could remember from the last time they had, had dinner was that there had been a lot of fighting and that Rebekah had ended up in tears.

"Klaus is back from Europe?" he knew that Klaus was stubborn and that he loved Europe so much that he wouldn't go back to New York unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Yes, I convince him. Are you free this weekend?" Esther prompted. "I already spoke to your sister and Klaus, so the only one left is you."

"I guess." Elijah said weakly, honestly after a hard week the only thing he wanted to do was to see the football game with Stefan or maybe Marcel and spend the weekend with Katherine, not with his parents.

Esther wasn't surprised by his response. "All right. I planned dinner reservations for Saturday at eight at The Riviera. You can bring a guest if you want, I wanted to meet your sister's new boyfriend, but unfortunately he is going to be working this weekend."

_Smart move, Salvatore_, Elijah couldn't help, but think as he hang up the phone.

* * *

"There's the new Amazing Spider man 2 movie coming out on Saturday," Katherine said as she and Elijah walked through the streets of New York on Thursday on their way to dinner. "We should go see it."

Elijah didn't respond.

Katherine whacked him playfully on the shoulder. "What gives? You've been zoned out all afternoon."

Elijah shook his head as he forced a smile. "It's nothing."

Katherine rolled her eyes. "Want to try that again? Come on, Elijah we both know that you're a terrible liar. So what gives?" she lowered her voice. "Is it the nightmares-"

"No, it's not the nightmares." Elijah answered tightly as he rummaged a hand through his hair. Katherine had never really seen him this angry and frustrated before. "My parents are coming to visit this weekend, and they want all of us-including my brother Klaus to have dinner with them on Saturday and it's just not something I'm looking forward too. Can we please talk about something else?"

Katherine squeezed Elijah's hand. "Elijah, you know you can tell me anything, right? Why do you and Rebekah never talk about you parents? Why are you so angry at them? Elijah, please tell me." She lowered her voice. "I want to know, please."

Elijah sighed as they continued walking towards the restaurant, he knew Katherine wasn't going to give it up, like with the nightmares. "My parents, Esther and Mikael are just very difficult people to get along with, let alone like. They spend our whole lives, grooming us to be everything they wanted us to be. They weren't shy about expressing their opinions every time they were disappointed," he said bitterly. "It was like a constant competition between me and my siblings to see who the best was, and there was always so much yelling and blaming, it wasn't a happy home. And worse, now that we're older they act like nothing's wrong, like nothing has changed that we still need to fight for the position of favorite child."

Katherine rested her head against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Eli." She couldn't help but think of her own childhood when her parents and Elena were alive, it hadn't been perfect, but it had been happy. Elijah's own childhood sounded miserable. "Hey, how about I come with you to the dinner. They can't be that bad if I'm there, right?"

"You would be surprise," Elijah said ruefully and sighed. "Honestly, Katherine I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't want you to suffer-"

"Elijah," she said firmly as she opened the door of the Italian restaurant. "I'm a strong girl, I can handle it. Besides you were there for me when I needed you, now let me do the same thing for you."

* * *

The next day Katherine knocked on Eloise's door. She hadn't seen her for a month, not since Emma's funeral. She wasn't sure exactly how she felt, but now that the anger had left her she knew it wasn't fair to completely blame Eloise, it could have happened to anyone. But Katherine wanted to make peace with her, she didn't want to lose anybody else and then later regret it. The door opened and Eloise looked surprised to see her there. "Katherine?"

"Hi," she said awkwardly. "Can I come in?"

Eloise nodded. "Yes," they walked back to the living room and stared at each other in awkward silence. "What brings you here?"

"I wanted to . . . apologize," Katherine said finally. "I know you lost Emma too, and I shouldn't have blamed you for something you had no control over."

"Losing Emma will be something I will always blame myself for, Katherine." Eloise whispered. "No matter what anyone says, but I'm glad that we are able to mend things between us, we only have each other left. How have you've been doing?"

"Fine." She said as she fiddled with her fingers. "Everything at the magazine is going well and I'm dating Elijah."

Eloise wasn't surprise, especially since Elijah had told her that he would be taking her to Cancun. "I'm glad you're finally dating a nice boy." She replied.

Katherine sighed as she rested her back against the couch. "The thing is that I'm having dinner with his parents and let just say that they are not the most wonderful people from their description and I'm nervous and I'm afraid that they won't. . .approve of me so to speak. How can I make them like me?"

Eloise paused and stared at her for a few moments. Katherine looked so much like her mother. "You can't make anyone like you, Katherine." Eloise said after a while. "You just have to be the kind of person that you are even if others don't like it. If your friends and Elijah like you for who you are, if you like who you are, then why does anyone else's opinion matter? If someone doesn't appreciate the kind of girl you are, then that is their lost. Maybe those kind of people don't matter."

-End of Chapter Twenty One-


	22. Chapter 22

**22**

Elijah and Katherine were in Katherine's kitchen, getting ready for a movie marathon that Elijah insisted that they have once Elijah found out that Katherine had never seen an Indiana Jones movie and that she had to see them because they were a classic.

Elijah hesitated before he brought up the topic that he had been dreading. "Katherine, about Saturday . . . I really appreciate the effort, but you don't have to come. I'm telling you, you are going to regret it."

"If you are trying to scare me it's not working." Katherine said as she pulled out the bag of popcorn from the microwave and started serving it into a pink colored bowl. She ate some of the popcorn and wrapped her arms around Elijah. "I want to be there."

Elijah wrapped his arms around her waist and sat her on the kitchen counter, her hair was in a messy ponytail. "I realize that."

Katherine rolled her eyes. "Then stop worrying." She kissed him. "Besides maybe I will get to know embarrassing stories from when you were a kid. You already got to see my album of shame."

"Nope." He kissed her forehead as he helped her down. "Fine, let's just not talk about this tonight. Tonight all we are focusing on is Indiana Jones."

"How terribly romantic."

"I try."

* * *

Caroline, Rebekah, and Katherine were looking through the racks at a small store near Fifth Avenue looking for an outfit for both Katherine and Rebekah for the Mikaelson dinner on Saturday and Caroline had offered to come as a consultant.

"Look for boring, safe, and predictable," Rebekah instructed as she picked up a pretty sapphire blouse, but then put it back. "Like something you would wear to a funeral or to court."

Caroline wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, why?" The two girls had meet hours before and by the time they had finished lunch, they had become friends.

Rebekah shrugged. "My parents are old fashioned. My mother still dresses like it's still the 90's half of the time." Katherine showed her a pretty, black blouse with a deep neckline. "Nope, not unless you want my brother looking at your boobs all day and my mom thinking you pose for Playboy."

Katherine scowled as she put the blouse back on the rack. "I can't believe all this trouble just for a dinner date. Can you tell me again, why I can't wear my own clothes?"

Rebekah paused for a moment. "They are too sexy. We need something appropriate and boring, once you're at home, you can strip for all I care. We haven't had dinner with my parents for a while which means they are going to be equally fierce."

Caroline started pulling out pencil skirts from the rack. "So I'm guessing you and your parents don't get along?"

"That's an understatement," Rebekah snorted as she started noticing the shoe selection. "They didn't used to be that bad. But ever since the whole Klaus/Hayley/ Elijah drama things have gone downhill."

"Hayley," Katherine said slowly as she turned back to face Rebekah. "You mentioned her before, I've been meaning to ask who is she?"

Rebekah flushed and bit her lip. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that."

Katherine felt her ears get warm and Caroline let out a nervous giggle. "Tell me what?"

Rebekah turned her back towards Katherine and pretended to be interested in a pair of blue heels that she would never wear. "It's not a big deal, Kat. A few years ago Elijah was engaged to Hayley Marshall, my parents loved her and they couldn't wait for the marriage and grandkids and the whole thing. Well, Hayley kind of got involved with my brother Klaus, and Elijah caught them in bed together. Naturally, my brother broke off the engagement, he and Klaus are ok now, but as you can guess there is still this tension." She tried to erase the conversation as she pulled out a plain black dress from the hanger. "How about you try this? I'll meet you in the dressing room."

* * *

Elijah looked at his watch and tapped his foot impatiently, he hated it when people were late and when he was stuck in crowded places, and unfortunately he was in both right now. He had been waiting to pick up Klaus at JKF airport for almost an hour and he still hadn't bothered to show up.

The crowd of people slowly started to disappear and Elijah finally saw his younger brother. He was dressed in jeans and a plain black shirt carrying his suitcase behind him. "Elijah, long time no see." He offered his palm for a high five, but Elijah refused. "Why are you so crabby?"

"I am not crabby." Elijah moodily replied, though he felt he had every reason to be. He had just finished his shift at the hospital, Katherine was still insisting on coming with him to dinner, and Klaus was not even apologetic for being late. "Let's just go,"

"It's good to see you brother, wow we have a lot to catch up on." Klaus said sarcastically as they walked back to Elijah's car. Elijah softened as he helped Klaus put his suitcases in the trunk.

"Sorry, I guess I'm just a little anxious to meet our parents."

"If it makes you feel any better you're not the only one that hates them," Klaus pointed out. "Anyway, I wasn't going to come, but Mom being Mom guilt trip me. Besides I wanted to see you and Bekah, I haven't see either of you in ages."

Elijah started exiting the airport. "You can always move back here," Klaus shook his head. "How is Europe?"

"Well, European girls are definitely better at-"

"Klaus!" Elijah pressed on the brakes. "I don't want to know."

"I was going to say conversations," Klaus said in feigned innocence. "But at least I know what is on your mind. Something tell me you have a lady friend. Who is it?"

Elijah pressed his lips tightly together.

Klaus rolled his eyes. "Tell me, Elijah."

After a while, Elijah said "We just started going out. Her name is Katherine Pierce she works at Ruby Red with Rebekah as a fashion editor. You'll meet her on Saturday, she's coming to dinner with our parents."

Klaus snorted. "Yeah, meeting our parents that should win her over, but good for you."

Elijah pressed his palm against his forehead, wishing that the weekend was already over.

-End of Twenty Two-


	23. Chapter 23

**23**

Saturday night, eight o'clock at The Rivera restaurant arrived sooner than expected for both Katherine and Elijah and both of them were nervous for different reasons though they tried not to show it. Katherine had decided to go with the plain black dress that Rebekah had chosen, but she had decided to add a silver necklace and a beautiful pair of high heels to make the outfit more fashionable. And she would be lying to say that she wasn't nervous, from Elijah and Rebekah's perspectives Mikael and Esther Mikaelson didn't seem like a whole lot of fun and Katherine wondered what if they didn't like her? It didn't help that Rebekah had told her about the whole Klaus/Hayley/ Elijah business.

As if sensing her nervousness, Elijah squeezed her shoulder. "It's going to be ok, just be yourself and don't worry too much."

"I'm not worried." She protested. "Is that your brother?"

"Oh, yes that's Niklaus, though he prefers it if everyone calls him Klaus, though." Elijah responded as he watched Rebekah and Klaus approached them. Rebekah had picked Klaus up in her own car.

"So this must be the famous Katherine that has been making my big brother so happy." Klaus said he shook Katherine's hand. "You're one lucky girl, Elijah is unfortunately one tough cookie. Isn't he?"

"Klaus." Elijah warned, the blush threatening to coat his cheeks.

Klaus rolled his eyes. "I'm just playing, Elijah. I'm Elijah's younger brother and Rebekah's oldest brother, Klaus Mikaelson."

Katherine smiled. "All the way from Europe."

Klaus mockingly kissed her hand. "At your service. I like her, Elijah she has charm."

Rebekah giggled at then her smile faltered. "Here they come."

Katherine turned towards where Rebekah was currently gazing at, and she immediately knew where the Mikaelson had gotten there good looks. Esther and Mikael were both tall and fair hair and were impeccably dress. They didn't look like anybody's parents.

"You're on time." Mikael sounded surprise as he kissed Rebekah on the cheek. "Hello, honey. Sons," he said shaking Elijah and Klaus' hand. Esther merely gave all three of them air kisses and suddenly Katherine felt very out of place.

Esther's light blue eyes landed on Katherine. Her lips pinched into a smile. "Oh, and who is this."

Elijah cleared his throat and put a protective arm around Katherine's shoulder. "Mother, Father this is my date for the evening and my girlfriend, Katherine Pierce."

"Hello." Katherine forced a smile. "It's nice to meet you."

Mikael nodded. "Very nice to meet you as well, I did not know that Elijah was dating."

"Oh, we have only dated for a couple of weeks."

Esther simply nodded. "Shall we get going? Our reservations were for eight o'clock."

* * *

This had to be the most awkward dinner that Katherine had ever been on and worse of all the rest of the Mikaelsons acted like their behavior was perfectly normal. Ever since they had arrived at the dinner table and their food had been placed in front of them neither of the Mikaelsons said a word.

Katherine awkwardly picked at her salad. "So Klaus, Rebekah tells me you're an artist?"

Klaus nodded. "I have my own gallery in London, but every once in a while I paint portraits for big churches or I do murals. I did one recently in a small cathedral in northern England."

"Wow." Katherine smiled at him. "That's amazing."

Klaus was just returning her smile, when Mikael burst into laughter. "Is something funny?"

"Just the thought of you thinking that painting is a real career and no offense, sweetheart but you really shouldn't encourage him." Mikael glanced back at Klaus. "When are you going to get a real job, boy? Or are you going to hide in Europe for the rest of your life and paint pictures? Answer me!"

"Dad." Rebekah hissed noticing that a few people were turning in their chairs. "We are at a restaurant."

"Painting is a real career, father. It is what I love to do." Klaus gritted his teeth.

"Well, I like to drink and you don't see me doing it as a professional career, now do you?" Mikael snapped. "It's time that you grew up and stopped wasting your time."

Katherine felt horribly guilty and wished that she hadn't started the conversation in the first place. Klaus scooted out his chair and placed the napkin on the plate and murmured as quietly as he possibly could. "I'm going back to my hotel room, the jet lag is affecting me."

Mikael scoffed.

Esther, who had apparently been ignoring the whole conversation didn't even looked up from her plate. "Yes, that is probably for the best, dear. Thank you for coming."

Rebekah watched angrily as Klaus left, she scooted out of her chair and scowled at Mikael. "See what you did?"

Mikael took a sip of his wine. "Oh, he is just being dramatic."

Rebekah threw him one last disgusted look before chasing after Klaus. Now there were only Mikael, Esther, Elijah, and Katherine at the table. Great.

"So Katherine," Esther looked up from her fish. "Where do you work?"

"I'm the Fashion Editor for Ruby Red." Katherine said proudly. "I work for Rebekah."

Mikael nodded. "Ah, a Fashionista."

Esther looked obviously disappointed by the answer. "Oh," she turned to Elijah. "Oh, Elijah you won't guess who me and your father ran into a few days ago. Hayley Marshall, she's looking well and beautiful. She was so sweet and did you know that she just became honored as-what was it, dear?"

"Hayley became honored as one of the youngest surgeons who has successfully managed to do a heart transplant surgery."

"That is great for Hayley."

"She mentioned coming to New York for a medical conference in a few weeks." Mikael pointed out. "You two could meet."

"I have no interest in seeing, Hayley." Elijah said tightly. Why would he want to see the woman that broke his heart?

Esther looked discouraged. "Just have her for coffee, last time it was just a little spat-"

Katherine cheeks burned with embarrassment and anger, she couldn't believe they were talking about Elijah going out with Hayley while she was in the room.

"It wasn't a little spat," Elijah said finally losing his temper and grabbing his coat. "She cheated on me with my own brother. Katherine, we're leaving. I have to work tomorrow." He lied.

Katherine stood up, grateful that it was finally over. "It was nice meeting you." She said sarcasm oozing out of her voice.

* * *

Elijah was silent the whole ride home and he didn't talk until he closed the door of his apartment and started throwing magazines and whatever non-breakable thing he could find on the ground. His face was filled with anger.

Katherine grasped his arm gently. "Elijah, calm down-"

"Calm down? How do you expect me to calm down, Katherine?" he demanded as he rummage a hand through his hair. "Do you see why I didn't want you to come? Every time they do come, they manage to anger us, and now they are trying to drag you with this thing with Hayley-"

"Elijah, look at me," she murmured as she placed a hand on his cheek. "I don't care about, Hayley. I didn't come out tonight because I wanted to meet them, it's because I wanted to help you. I love you, Elijah."

Elijah kissed her forehead. "I love you too, Katherine."

-End of Chapter Twenty Three-


	24. Chapter 24

**24**

Katherine woke up, half confused to where she was. Instead of waking up in her own dark purple and white bedroom, she had woken up in a darker looking bedroom. She sure didn't have the painting of a sailboat in her room. She looked to her side and saw that Elijah was peacefully sleeping.

A small smile coated her face. He looked so adorable when he was asleep.

After the disastrous dinner date last night with his parents, Katherine had been glad that she had followed Elijah home. She knew all too well, how hard it was to deal with disappointments.

Katherine untangle herself from Elijah's grip and stared at him for a few seconds. He had told her than he loved her. Sure, Katherine had told him first, but she hadn't thought that he would repeat it back.

I love you, the words had a special taste in her mouth. She didn't remember the last time she had told someone that she loved them, let alone here it from them. She looked at the clock, seven AM, they didn't have much time for snuggling. It was Sunday and Katherine didn't have work today, but she desperately wanted to go to her own house and shower. She didn't have any clothes in Elijah's apartment,

She didn't want to wake him, so she decided it would be best if she made him a pot of coffee and leave him a little note or something. She quickly got up and put on her bra and panties. Katherine quickly got her heels and dress from last night and tip toe to the kitchen and finished dressing.

While Katherine waited for the pot of coffee to be ready, she looked at the calendar that was neatly hanging and was surprised to realize that it was her birthday today. With all the stress from work, Eloise, and meeting Elijah's parents she had completely forgotten about her birthday.

Not that Katherine minded much, she was not a big birthday fan.

She was just serving herself a cup of coffee when Elijah came into the room dressed in only a pair of pajamas pants. He was checking his cell phone. "Well, like I expected my brother was on the first plane back to London this morning. He send me a goodbye text."

"That's nice, I guess."

"That's Klaus." He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her and started kissing her neck. "Why are you up so early and so fancy looking?"

Katherine rolled her eyes. "Very funny, you know I don't have clothes here."

Elijah started pulling down the zipper of her dress. "You don't have to wear clothes here."

Katherine giggled as she pushed his hand away. "I need to go home and change, but what if we have dinner together? Caroline just texted me, she wants to have breakfast with me and go shoe shopping. Unless you want to come with me?"

"As much fun as that would be," Elijah said sarcastically as he kissed her before grabbing a cup of coffee. "I think I'll just meet you for dinner."

* * *

Elijah waited patiently outside of Katherine's house, apparently she and Caroline had taken a little more time than they had planned and Katherine had called to tell him that she would just stop by her house and drop her bags so that they could head off to dinner.

"Hi," she said as she greeted him by giving him a quick peck on the lips.

Elijah raised an eyebrow as he noticed the dozen or so bags hanging by her wrist. "Why did you buy so many things?"

Katherine shrugged as she opened the door of the townhouse. "These are necessities, Elijah," she threw him a flirty smirk. "Besides, I found something you might like."

Katherine deposited her bags in the living room and excused herself to get a sweater from her closet. While Elijah waited for her, he noticed a box that stuck out from all the others. It was a small, colorful box with a pale blue ribbon that was unopened. It black ink there was written: _Happy Birthday, Kitty Kat xoxo Caroline._

Elijah paused and suddenly felt very, very stupid. Was Katherine's birthday today? He honestly had no clue and suddenly hated himself for not asking sooner. What kind of boyfriend forgets his girlfriend's birthday?

"I'm ready." Katherine said as she exited the bedroom. "Elijah, what's wrong?"

Elijah looked up. "Why didn't you tell me it was your birthday?"

Katherine raised an eyebrow, truly confused. "Should I have?"

"Of course, Katherine." Elijah said, sounding exhausted. "It's your birthday and I didn't even know."

Katherine started putting on her sweater looking amused. "Elijah, really it's not a big deal. I really don't care about my birthday, it just means I'm getting older. Come on, let's go to dinner."

* * *

"Oh, come on you're not still upset are you?" Katherine sighed as she and Elijah exited the restaurant. Despite Katherine's attempts to get him to talk about something else, Elijah wouldn't budge. He had been frowning all evening. "If I let you buy me a present will you promise to stop frowning?"

Elijah squeezed her hand. "Perhaps." He led her towards a small gift shop that seemed to sell novelties and small presents. "Pick something."

Katherine started feeling uncomfortable. She didn't know why people made such fuss over birthdays. She looked around the small store, she didn't see anything that stood out. By the cashier register there were a row of plushies. Katherine picked up a small, white kitten. "Here. I want this."

Elijah looked at the cat. "You want a one dollar stuffed cat for your birthday present?"

Katherine shrugged. "Why not? She looks like Marie."

Elijah opened his mouth to argue. Katherine narrowed her eyes. "Elijah, you promised that I could choose."

Katherine watched as the cashier wrapped the stuffed cat and placed it inside a small baggie. She handed the bag to Katherine and she and Elijah exited the store.

"What are you pouting for now?" Katherine laughed. "You got to give me a gift."

"I didn't mean I wanted to give you a stuffed animal."

"Well, I love this kitty." Katherine grabbed the kitty out of the bag and pressed the plushy against Elijah's jaw, she lowered her voice to make it some like Tweety Bird. "And this kitty loves you."

Elijah smiled despite himself. "Next year I'm picking out your present."

-End of Chapter Twenty Four-


	25. Chapter 25

**25**

"Why are we doing this again?" Katherine held in a groan as her sweaty curls that were tied into a messy ponytail bounced behind her. Katherine hated sweating. She especially hated jogging. She didn't know how Elijah had convinced her to do both at the ungodly hour of eight AM on Saturday morning.

Saturdays were for sleeping in and having brunch, not jogging with what seemed like half of New York City. The sad thing was that Elijah could actually run faster than her and she, not used to jogging had to practically leap twice to catch up to him.

"Why can't I just diet and avoid cookies like I usually do?" she wiped the sweat off her brow.

"Because diets aren't healthy." He chided her as they continued jogging (well, Elijah jogged while Katherine limped at snail pace besides him) "Besides you love cookies."

"Not what they do to my thighs and my butt." Katherine scoffed as she readjusted her hat and stopped. "Believe me a pack of Chips Ahoy cookies is not worth it, ok five minute break. I'm exhausted."

"We barely started," Elijah reminded her as he wrapped his arms around her and playfully patted her butt. "It if makes you feel any better I like your butt just the way it is."

Katherine whacked him with her water bottle and tried to keep from smiling. "Elijah, people are watching."

"Katherine? Oh, crap Katherine is that you?"

Elijah felt Katherine stiffened. Who was that? It couldn't possibly be-Katherine would have preferred the devil himself. Katherine slowly turned around and tried to plaster a smile across her face which came out looking more like a grimace. "Mason . . . hi."

A tall, good looking guy with blue eyes and curly brown hair took his earphones off and smiled at Katherine. "The one and only. Good to see you, Kat. How you've been?"

"Fine." She said faintly. She hadn't spoke to Mason since they broke up. Last, she had heard the guy had moved to Los Angeles chasing after a newbie model. Elijah cleared his throat. "Oh, Mason this is my boyfriend, Elijah. Elijah, this is my ex-boyfriend-I mean Mason Lockwood."

Mason offered his hand. "Nice to meet you, man."

Elijah didn't shook it. "Nice to meet you."

Mason dropped it, getting the message. "Well, good to see you. You're a lucky man, Katherine is a great girl."

"Yes, she is." Elijah replied never missing a step.

Mason put his earphones again. "Well, nice to see you again, Katherine, Elijah."

Elijah and Katherine stared back as they watched Mason continue jogging. "So that's the ex-boyfriend." He whistled.

"Oh, come on," Katherine scolded him. "It doesn't mean anything, Mason and I broke up a long time ago."

"Why?"

"He was an ass." She replied quickly as she kissed him. "Come on, I'll race you."

* * *

Mason Lockwood. Katherine hadn't thought about him in a long time. Katherine stepped out of the shower and began blow drying her hair. He hadn't changed much from what she had seen at the park. He still had that same boyish smile that had made Katherine fall for him, the minute she had laid eyes on him.

Her phone rang and she answered it. "Hello?"

"Katherine? Oh, thank god you have the same number," the cheery voice answered. "It's me Mason."

"Mason." She murmured as she sat at the edge of her bed. "What's up?"

"I called to invite you to brunch tomorrow." He said chirpily.

Katherine gritted her teeth in annoyance. "I have a boyfriend, Mason."

Mason laughed. "Calm down, sheriff. I'm just inviting you as friends, to catch up."

"Oh . . . that's very nice, Mason, but I can't tomorrow . . . I have to work." She stumbled.

"On Sunday?" Mason teased. "Come on, even I know you're not that much of a workaholic. Come on, have brunch with me. Call me later to give you the address."

"Mason, I-"

He hung up.

* * *

"What?" Caroline nearly spit out her ice tea as she stared at Katherine wide eyed over her salad. "You saw that asshole Mason again? Where? When?"

"Saturday at the park, I was jogging with Elijah," Katherine replied. "And will you keep your voice down I really don't want the whole restaurant finding out."

Caroline gave her a sheepish grin as she lowered her voice. "Sorry, it's just after everything Mason put you through it amazes me that the guy still has the decency to say hi. Have you guys even spoke since you broke up?"

"No. We didn't break up," she said sounding uncertain. "We just kind of fell apart."

"Katherine!" Caroline said sounding exasperated. "You're not telling me that you prefer that spineless, controlling little coward over Elijah do you? You can't let him get into your head!"

"I'm not letting him get into my head, Caroline," Katherine hissed. "It was just weird seeing him again."

"Did Elijah talk to him?"

"Not much, they were pretty much distant." She squirmed. "The thing is that later, he called me and invited me to brunch tomorrow. Nothing romantic, just as friends. I said I would think about it."

Caroline's blue eyes narrowed dangerously towards her. "Are you insane?" she hissed. "You can't go to brunch, no matter how harmless he seems. Don't you remember what this guy put your through? How he canceled at the last minute, how he was flirting with other women when he was with you, do you really want to go through that again?"

Katherine placed down her fork. "Care, I'm not thinking about dating him. It was just weird seeing him again. Can we not talk about it, please?"

-Chapter Twenty Five-


	26. Chapter 26

**26**

Against her better judgment, Katherine decided to go on the brunch date with Mason Lockwood. Katherine might not have gone, but she would be lying to herself if she didn't admit that she felt a bit guilty about ignoring his emails and phone calls insisting that she go with him the next day for brunch.

Even though they were broken up, Mason could still influence her.

_It's just one measly brunch, _Katherine tried to reassure herself as she entered a small breakfast café, _it's not a date, just a casual, awkward meeting between friends._

When she entered the sunny, slightly crowded breakfast area she was greeted by a happy hostess. "Hi, how many are in your party?"

Before Katherine could open her mouth, Mason came towards her, beaming. "Katherine! Hi!" he told the hostess. "She's with me."

The hostess giggled, obviously memorized by his blue eyes. "Of course, right this way please."

The café was so small that the hostess lead them to the outdoor patio. She set the menus down on the table. "Enjoy."

Katherine sat at the opposite side and looked at her menu. She started staring at the turkey and chesses sandwich with harsh browns. Yummy.

Mason in front of her smiled. "Thank you for coming today, I really wanted to talk to you." he continued. "Are you sure your boyfriend wont mind?"

"No," Katherine's jaw tightened. "We are pretty secure in our relationship."

"Of course. Of course. What is he?"

"A doctor." Katherine tried to change the subject. She really didn't want to talk about Elijah, especially to Mason. "How is the news anchor thing working for you?" she remembered that Mason was a news anchor, though he never stayed in one news channel for long.

He shrugged. "It's going. News every day."

A waiter appeared with a note pad. "Are you ready to order?"

"Yes, I'll have coffee and a cheese omelet," Mason continued. "And the lady will have the French toast combo and orange juice."

The waiter didn't even bother glancing at Katherine as he scurried way.

Katherine looked at him in disbelief. The jerk hadn't even asked her what she wanted. He had just ordered for her, as if Katherine were some three year old that couldn't order for herself.

Katherine's mouth set into a thin line.

Mason sensing this, looked up. "You still like French toast right?"

"Of course, but I am a big girl Mason and I can order by myself, I sure don't need you ordering for me."

Mason shrugged. "Just trying to be a gentleman."

What was this, 1955?

With that single comment, Katherine remembered the reason that she and Mason Lockwood had broken up. Mason could be sweet when he wanted too, but he could also be a controlling asshole.

Once the food arrived Katherine started picking on her breakfast, not really hungry anymore and silently scolding herself. She should have listen to Caroline.

"So Mason what brings you to town?" Katherine asked. "Last time I heard you were going to Los Angeles." _with the slut you cheated on me with._

Mason took a sip of his coffee. "I stayed in Los Angeles for a few months, but to tell you the truth it wasn't really my style. Too many fake people, so I thought I should move back to New York."

"Terrific." she said not bothering to hide her sarcasm.

"What about you, are you still doing that fashion thing." he frowned trying to remember the name of the magazine. "For the Scarlett magazine."

"Ruby Red." Katherine corrected as the sweet cinnamon hit her toung. "Actually I was promoted to fashion editor."

"Really, that's great." he suddenly leaned across and squeezed her hand. "I knew you had it in you."

Katherine removed her hand from his and Mason nodded. "Oh, yes boyfriend, it wont happened again."

_It better not, _Katherine grabbed her purse. "Mason, I-"

"Kat, look I'm sorry," he interrupted her. "It wont happen again. It's just sometimes I still see you as my girl, you know."

"Well, I'm not your girl, not anymore."

* * *

Elijah was running late.

He had woken up late this morning as then he remembered that he needed to pick up an important package from the post office for his sister Rebekah, that he had forgotten to pick up.

While he waiting for it to be safe to cross, Elijah looked around. It didn't seem to matter what day it was, in New York everything seemed to be busy and all the people seemed to be in a hurry. Elijah actually envied all of the others who could actually sit down an have a proper breakfast.

His eyes caught something and his mouth gaped. Was that-

It was. Katherine and Mason in the outside patio of a cafe across the street, and were they holding hands? Elijah's cheeks seemed to flush with anger and disbelief. Katherine had told him that she couldn't have breakfast with him today, was it because she preferred Mason?

And even if they were going as friends, why didn't he bother to tell her? Why keep it a secret?

Elijah felt a rush of anger inside him. Why had she decided to date him if she was going to run into Mason's arms the second he came back?

* * *

Later that night, after a shower Elijah laid down on his bed and turned on the TV, not that he bothered watching it. His thoughts seemed to be focusing on only one group of people, Katherine and Mason.

And even though Elijah knew he was acting like an insecure fifteen year old, he didn't bother to call her. He just didn't want to talk to her. Elijah slumped in his bed.

He heard the phone rang, but he didn't bother answering it. He heard the answering machine beep, then Katherine's voice. "Hey, sweetheart I have no idea why you're not answering your phone, I thought we could go out, but you are probably tired. I'll talk to you later. I love you."

-End of Chapter Twenty Six-


	27. Chapter 27

**27**

Elijah went towards the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of vodka. He really wasn't much of a drinker, that was more Rebekah's thing, but he could use a pick me up. Besides he didn't have to work tomorrow, so he didn't have to worry about hangovers.

He served himself a small amount in a small glass and drank the bitter liquid. He shook his head as the alcohol touched his throat, maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

The doorbell rang and Elijah thought twice about answering it. He really didn't want to speak to Katherine at the moment. He paused for a bit in the kitchen and the person stopped ringing the bell and simply started knocking softly. "Elijah?"

Elijah paused. He hadn't heard the voice in a long time. Not since that voice begged him to reconsider their relationship. "Elijah, are you there?"

Elijah, still slightly confused opened the door and came face to face with his former fiancée, Dr. Hayley Marshall, a heart surgeon, the girl that his parents adored, and the last person that Elijah wanted to see, much less expected to see in the middle of the night on a Sunday.

There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Hayley Marshall was a beautiful woman, and Elijah would have to lie if he hadn't noticed her beauty when they had met in med school. She was a tall, thin woman with chocolate brown hair, big green eyes, and pink full lips. She had two suitcases at her feet and was wearing a big coat. "Hey."

"Hi," he said staring at her suitcases, since when had his apartment turned into a hotel? Not wanting to be rude, he opened the door wider. "Come on in."

Hayley's features relaxed. "Thanks, I'm sorry to come barging in. Did I wake you?"

"Oh, no," Elijah said as he put the seal back on the vodka bottle. "Can I get you anything, coffee? Water?"

Hayley shook her head as she softly placed her hand on his arm. "Always the gentleman. No, I'll have one of those." She said pointing to the vodka bottle. Elijah handed her a glass and Hayley clicked it against his. "Cheers."

There was an awkward silence as Hayley finished her drink. Elijah cleared his throat. "No to be rude, Hayley but what are you doing in New York?"

"Didn't you parents tell you? I'm going to a medical conference tomorrow," she sighed. "Though it seems I have the worst luck in the world. My reservation was canceled in my hotel without noticed and it seems that every other hotel was booked. I know I'm probably the last person you want to hear from, but I was wondering if I could stay here tonight?"

Elijah's eyes widened. "In my apartment?"

Hayley bit her lip. "Yeah, I know it's beyond weird after . . . everything. But I really have no place to stay."

Not having the heart to say no, Elijah simply nodded. "Yes, you can stay here for tonight. You can sleep in my bed and I'll sleep on the couch."

Hayley shook her head. "Oh, no Elijah I'm perfectly fine on the couch."

Elijah shook his head as he started pulling out extra pillows. "No, Hayley I insist."

* * *

"Voicemail again." Katherine dropped her phone on her bed. It was Monday morning and Katherine was already dressed and ready for work. She grabbed her purse and stared at Marie, who was lazily looking at her from her bed. "Why isn't he answering Marie? Do you think he's sick?"

Marie simply curled on her bed and purred.

"Loads of help you are." Katherine glanced at her watch. She was up pretty early today. It was weird that Elijah wasn't answering his phone or messages, he was usually pretty reliable with that. She had about an hour before work, Katherine could give him a quick visit to make sure that everything was all right.

Katherine exited her apartment and hailed a taxi and was at Elijah's apartment in fifteen minutes. She checked her lip gloss in the reflection of the elevator doors before the doors opened. Katherine reached his apartment door. Apartment 13A.

She knocked on the door and frowned when no one answered. She knocked again when no one answered, Elijah was a heavy asleep.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," said an annoyed, sleepy voice. A young woman with messy brown hair and wearing only a long t shirt that barely covered the top of her thighs opened the door. She cocked an eyebrow and said annoyed. "Can I help you?"

Katherine crossed her arms over her chest. "Who are you?"

"Hayley. But you still haven't answered my question, who the hell are you and why are you knocking down the door at eight in the morning."

"I'm Katherine," Katherine snarled. "Where is Elijah? Why didn't he answer the door?"

"He's in the shower," Hayley shrugged. "Elijah is an old friend of mine and he let me stay the night. Problem?"

Katherine frowned. Hayley? As in the Hayley? Elijah's ex fiancée? Last time she had heard Elijah never wanted to see Hayley again, so why had she spend the night in his apartment half naked?

Hayley obviously looked impatient. "So are you going to stay?"

"No," she tried to keep her voice from chocking. "Just tell him I never want to see him again." And before Hayley could ask what she meant by that, Katherine turned around and left.

* * *

By the time that Elijah got out of the shower, Hayley was pouring coffee and making pancakes, because unlike Katherine she could actually cook. She smiled at him. "Morning."

"Good morning." Elijah took a sip of coffee. "You didn't have to cook."

"Oh, please it was the least I could do," Hayley flipped the pancakes. "Oh, by the way some girl came over while you were in the shower looking for you. Bitchy little thing, Kassie or Katie or something like that. Anyway, she told me to tell you that she never wants to see you again."

Elijah nearly spit out his coffee. "Katherine?"

Hayley wrinkled her nose. "I guess so? Who is she, your cleaning lady?"

Elijah ignored her as he went into his bedroom and dialed her number. "Please pick up." He murmured.

"Don't even bother explaining." Was the first thing that Katherine said when she answered.

"Katherine, you need to believe me, it's not what you think." Elijah tried to explain. "It's a misunderstanding-I'll come over tonight to explain."

"I don't want to hear any explanation!"

"Well, you're going to!"

"Goodbye, Dr. Mikaelson." Katherine snapped. "Have a nice life."

-End of Chapter Twenty Seven-


	28. Chapter 28

**28**

"I can't remember the last time you stayed over," Eloise mused as she put down her cup of tea and stared at her granddaughter who had her back facing towards her. "Not since you graduated high school, I believe. And not that I don't love having you here, dear but why did you decide to stay here on such short notice?"

Katherine shrugged, not bothering to give an answer. She had left work early and dragged whatever necessities she needed and Marie over to Eloise's house. She still couldn't get Hayley's bitchy, superiority face out of her mind. What the hell had she been doing at Elijah's apartment? Weren't there twenty other million hotels were she could stay?

Katherine was lying down on the living room floor, like she and Elena used to do when they were little. She had taken off her heels and was now curled up on the floor, petting Marie behind the ears.

"I told you, grandma it's only for a few days, there's a huge leakage in the house and maybe termites and I don't know how long it's going to take to fix it. Probably a few days or weeks." She lied. Ok, she knew she was acting like a damn fifteen year old, but she really didn't want to face Elijah. At least not now. He told her that he would explain that afternoon at her house, but he wouldn't be able to explain if she wasn't there.

So instead she opted for hiding at her grandmother's house. Very mature.

Eloise nodded. "But did you have to bring that damn cat? She better not pee all over my furniture, you know I hate animals, Katherine. Couldn't you put her in a pet shelter?"

"I'm not putting Marie, in a pet shelter," Katherine murmured. "She won't bother you."

"All right," Eloise huffed. "But you can't spent all afternoon, pouting and feeling sorry for yourself and moping-my bridge friends are coming at four and they want you to give them a few make up tips."

Katherine squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe this wasn't the best idea.

* * *

"You want me to organize the charity ball for Tiny Hearts, Lots of Love?" Katherine said quizzically as she looked at the thick manual that Rebekah had given her. Rebekah as editor, organized the ball every year. Tiny Hearts, Lots of Love was a charity organization for kids and babies born with heart disease problems and Ruby Red was one of the biggest donors, organizing a ball where wealthy people donated money for the organization. "Don't you and Melissa usually do it?"

"Yes," she said, not even bothering to look up from her computer. "But Melissa is on medical leave and since I need a second in command I was wondering if you would like to organize it with me."

"Sure, I love that ball every year." She started flipping through the pages. There was a list of previous donors and attendance at the ball. One name caught her eye. Dr. Hayley Marshall.

* * *

"Miss Mikaelson," Vanessa, her secretary said over the phone. "Your brother, Dr. Mikaelson is here to see you."

Rebekah stopped typing. "Send him in, please Vanessa."

A second later, Elijah stepped into the room, still wearing his scrubs from the hospital. It probably was his lunch break or something. "Rebekah," he greeted her by giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Where's Katherine? Her assistant, April told me she was out."

"You didn't come and visit me?" Rebekah pouted. "And no, she's not. She and the photographing team went to photograph some new jewels that came out from Tiffany's that will be perfect for our new issue. But something tells me that you don't care, so I'm going to cut to the chase how did you screw up this time?"

"Me? Why do I have to be the one to screw things up?"

"You have a lot to know. Honey, it's never the girl's fault."

Elijah scowled as he folded his arms across his chest. "It wasn't my fault! She has no right to be mad at me, especially when she's holding hands with that Mason guy!"

"Elijah, I was just teasing." Rebekah frowned. "What's with you two? Trouble in paradise already?"

"No, I don't know." He rummaged a hand through his dark hair. "On Saturday, we meet up with this guy named Mason-"

"Not Lockwood, that prick she dated a while back." Rebekah scowled.

"You know him?"

"The guy made her life a living hell. What's your point?"

"Well on Sunday, I saw them having brunch at a café . . . and holding hands." His voice trailed off.

Rebekah rested her back against the chair. "Don't jump to conclusions. Did they kiss?"

"Well, no."

"Hug?"

"No."

"Then you don't have any concrete evidence. Believe me, Katherine wouldn't be as dumb as to go back to a guy like Mason. Just go talk to her."

Elijah sighed as he leaned forward. "We're not exactly on speaking terms right now." He quickly told her about the Hayley situation.

The look that Rebekah gave him could have scared the devil. "You men really are idiots. In what world is it ok, to have an ex-girlfriend sleep over while you're dating. No wonder she's pissed, if Stefan did that to me I would have knocked off his teeth. You better apologize."

"Why should I apologize?" he demanded. "She's the one who jumped to conclusions and now she won't answer my calls. Why should I be the one to apologize?"

Rebekah rolled her eyes. "Because Katherine won't until she dies."

* * *

"Vodka tonic," Hayley snapped to the bar tender as soon as she reached her seat. She pushed back her glossy brown hair and set down her designer handbag. "What was so urgent? The medical conference is in an hour and it wouldn't be very wise for the guest speaker to be late."

"Aren't you a sweet thing?" Mason said sarcastically as he took a sip of his own drink. "Well, my brunch plan to win back Katherine was a total bust."

"Wow, she didn't fall for your charms? Shocking." Hayley snarled as she grabbed her glass, tightly. "Well, if it makes you feel any better Elijah was about as exciting as toothpaste last night. But I forgot how sweet he was and I remember the sex, the sex was great. Far better than Klaus."

"As successful as you are romantic, Dr. Marshall." Mason noticed her hand. "But since Elijah didn't offer you a wedding ring last night, that brings us back to square one."

"Hey, at least he let me in," Hayley replied. "And unlike you, I didn't have to beg, he actually bought that whole sob story, which is more than I can say for Katherine."

Mason pushed back her dark hair and whispered in her ear. "Well, some woman aren't so easy."

"And some men aren't such assholes." She snapped back. "Though, I admit it was nice seeing Elijah, these past few years have been good to him. I saw his parents a few weeks ago, I had them eating from the palm of my hand with the sweet girl act, it does help that they blame Klaus for the little incident between us," she bit her lip. "Dr. and Dr. Mikaelson that does sound nice."

Mason rolled his eyes as he paid for the drink. "Doddle Mr. and Mrs. Mikaelson on your notebook later, when Katherine saw you, you didn't tell her that you already knew who she was right?"

"Oh, please seeing her picture hardly counts as meeting her," Hayley rolled her eyes. "Is she always that bitchy and self-centered?"

"It's part of her personality, so I'm going to go with yes."

"Well I want her out of the picture," Hayley raised her glass so that the bartender could refill it. "I want Elijah to be mine."

-End of Chapter Twenty Eight-


	29. Chapter 29

**29**

"I don't know, roses?" Katherine frowned as she looked at the pink and red roses that Rebekah was holding out for her in her palm. It was a slightly chilly morning in a flower shop in downtown Manhattan. The charity ball was less than two weeks away and Katherine and Rebekah still had to pick the flowers. "Aren't those a little cliché, we did those last year."

"Good point." Rebekah placed the flowers down while sending a quick email through her phone. "Though I have always been a little old fashion, but I'm open to suggestions so what do you suggest?"

"I was thinking poppies or," she frowned in concentration as she tried to remember the name. "Or those little bell shape flowers, what were they called?"

"Tulips." Rebekah finished for her. "But I don't think those flowers are elegant enough-remember we're looking for classy and elegant."

For the next few minutes Katherine and Rebekah roam the halls, every once in a while looking back for the approval of a particular flower. Rebekah thought that this was the perfect time to help her brother out with the whole Hayley drama. "So have you and my brother spoken lately?"

Katherine dropped the petal in frustration. "He told you, didn't he?"

"No!" Rebekah blurted out. "Ok, well yes maybe, but Katherine you have to believe me there is nothing going on between Elijah and Hayley. Hayley is a little tramp who had already broke my brother's heart once and I'm not going to let it happen again. It's just a misunderstanding-"

"Oh, yes Rebekah because his half naked ex-girlfriend is nothing to worry about." Katherine started coughing.

Rebekah frowned as she handed her a tissue. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." She said as she waved her away. "Just please do me a favor, don't get involved between me and Elijah. I know you're his sister, but this is between me and him."

* * *

Eloise's house. Elijah wondered why he hadn't guessed sooner.

Elijah had been growing frustrated and angry that Katherine wasn't returning any of his calls and that she never seemed to be at home whenever Elijah arrived. He had ran into Caroline recently who admitted that she was staying at Eloise's for a couple of weeks because of termites.

Unless the termites were named Elijah, Mason, and Hayley Elijah doubted it.

He knocked on the door, hoping it would have been Katherine who answered, but instead it was Eloise. She smiled when she saw him. "Elijah, hello. What brings you here?"

"I came to speak to Katherine, I heard that she's staying here." He said. "May I come in? Is she here?"

"Yes," Eloise opened the door. "She working on some charity ball thing, she's really excited about it. Wait here, I'll call her." Eloise left Elijah standing in the hallway while she entered the parlor and saw Katherine typing on her computer. "Katherine, Elijah is here to see you."

Katherine stiffened as she stopped typing. "Tell him, I'm not here."

"But I already told him you were here."

"Then make something up I don't care." She snapped. "I don't want to see him."

Eloise went outside and looked embarrassed. "So I assume you heard all of that?"

"It was hard not to," Elijah cleared his throat. "I apologize profoundly for this."

Before Eloise could ask, Elijah stormed besides her and walked into the living room where Katherine was on her computer. Elijah shut down the computer screen and stared at her. "I'm going to talk and for once in your life, you're going to listen."

Katherine glared back in return. "I have nothing to say to you."

"You're upset I get that, but I can't make things right if you don't let me explain!" Elijah said through gritted teeth.

"What do you need to explain, Elijah? I'm sorry, Katherine next time I'll send you an email next time Hayley is coming over. I don't want to hear your excuses!"

"See this is what I don't like about you." Elijah snapped. "You jump to conclusions and you only hear and believe what you want to see. I could easily tell you the same thing about you and Mason-the way that you were holding hands together."

Katherine snapped. "Were you spying on us?"

"Of course not! Should I?"

"No, why should you? If I'm so unpleasant to be around why don't you go run back to Hayley since she's so perfect and beautiful!" she hissed. "And I bet she never burn you food!"

"Katherine, I don't care about you burning food!" Elijah said. "Are you listening to yourself? You're acting completely hysterical!"

Katherine's face flushed red and Elijah knew that he had said the wrong thing. "I didn't-"

"GET. OUT."

Katherine sighed as she heard Elijah slammed the door. She tried to ignore the tears in her eyes as she forced herself back to type. Eloise came in a second later.

"Did you two have a fight?"

Katherine refused to face her. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, you two aren't going to solve anything if you two keep being stubborn and shouting your heads off."

* * *

Elijah angrily stepped into the street, fumbling with his coat buttons until finally he decided to leave them unbutton. That girl was so stubborn. He hated that Katherine wouldn't listen to his side of the story it's not like she had caught him and Hayley in bed together.

"For Chrissake's!" he murmured more to himself than to anybody else. "I let her stay one night and suddenly I'm the bad guy while she has been hanging around with her ex-boyfriend!" he began walking towards where he had parked his car.

Maybe all of this, maybe deciding to date was a mistake. She was his former patient. And doctors shouldn't date patients, it was just one of the things that you didn't do.

But Elijah had done it, thinking it would be different. That Katherine and him would be able to have a normal, stable relationship. Boy, was he wrong.

-End of Chapter Twenty Nine-


	30. Chapter 30

**30**

Katherine's brown eyes flew open and she let out a groan as she looked at her alarm clock. It was barely six, who in their right mind woke up at six on a Saturday morning? She was thinking about lying down for a few more minutes, but she knew that if she did that, she would just fall back to sleep.

Katherine forced herself up. Today was the charity ball. Her first big event and she was not going to slump through it. She sat up and immediately her whole body shivered and her teeth started chattering, she pressed a hand to her pounding head and felt the heat of a fever radiating through her fingers.

Oh, crap. Not this. Not a stupid cold today of all days.

For the past few days while she and Rebekah had been planning the ball, Katherine had experience a few symptoms caused by the new chilly fall weather. A cough here, a sneeze there, but she hadn't think it would develop into an actual cold.

Katherine would love nothing more than to crawl back into bed and sleep, but she refused to do that.

She had given half of her life and more than half of her energy to plan this party and she was going to attend no matter what.

* * *

"Katherine are you ok?" Caroline frowned as she looked at her friend who looked like she was about to fall asleep sitting up. Katherine had invited her to the ball, especially since she and Rebekah had become all buddy-buddy. The two girls had been getting ready at Katherine's house (Katherine had moved back in.)

Katherine's brown eyes opened as she fixed her eyeliner that she had accidently smudge. Her day hadn't exactly gone as planned. First off there had been a few problems with the decorations and someone had gotten their menu orders wrong so Katherine had to call the chef to give him the correct order, she had been late to her hair appointment, she was dead to Elijah, and her cold seemed to have gotten worse. She could literally feel her makeup melting on her face.

She wanted to burst into tears.

"I'm fine." Katherine responded, her voice groggy and squeaky that it reminded her of Donald Duck. Katherine was wearing a short, tight black dress with shoulder straps, black tights, and black high heels.

Caroline had let her borrow a beautiful silver necklace with black stones and the hair dresser had done a decent job and combed back Katherine's hair into a French twist.

Caroline had opted for something more festive, a long red dress with a sweetheart neckline. Her blond hair was perfectly straight. She frowned as she touched Katherine's burning cheek. "You're burning up, you should probably stay home."

"I can't stay home and I won't." Katherine tried not to snap at her as she fixed her lipstick. "Now hurry up, we're going to be late for the party."

* * *

"Stefan?" Elijah opened the door and looked confused. He was still dressed in his scrubs, he had finished his shift hours earlier, but hadn't bothered changing out of them. He had been debating whether to order Thai food or pizza for dinner. "Come in."

"Thanks." Stefan was neatly dressed in a suit. He looked at the takeout menus on the counter. "So I'm guessing this means you're not going to the charity ball?"

"You're correct on that fact." He smiled a little. "Did my sister send you here to drag me? Because even though you're my friend Stefan, I can assure you that it won't be easy."

Stefan cracked a rare smile. "No, I won't drag you, but I will try and convince you. You've gone to the ball before, why aren't you going to now. Are you having problems with Katherine?"

Elijah flinched. "I rather not talk about it, and it's not just Katherine, my ex fiancée is there too and I don't want to . . . stir the pot."

"It would make for a more enjoyable evening." Stefan patted Elijah on the back. "Fine, I won't force you to go, but believe me you might feel better if you do."

* * *

The Tiny Hearts, Lots of Love charity ball seemed to be a success from the looks of it. The hotel ballroom was covered in elegantly dressed people drinking alcoholic beverages. The room was tastefully decorated in white and red. There was a giant heart made out of tiny pearls were people could drop off their donations. Rebekah and Katherine had outdid themselves.

Elijah had changed his mind and opted to go, much to his disbelief an hour after Stefan left. But he was doing this for his sister and for charity, not for Katherine.

"Elijah!" Caroline greeted him with a smile as she handed him a champagne flute. "I didn't know you were here."

"I just arrive, you look lovely Caroline," he looked over her shoulder. "Katherine isn't here, is she?"

"Yeah, she's speaking to some people from Tiny Hearts," she lowered her voice. "Also don't tell her I told you, but can you take her home after she does her speech?"

Elijah raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"She has a pretty bad cold." Caroline replied. "And she looks completely miserable. If anyone can convince her to go home and sleep, it would probably be you."

Elijah nodded. It was obvious that Caroline didn't know about his and Katherine's little fight and Elijah wondered why she had kept it from her best friend.

* * *

Katherine had just been looking through the list of donors when a figure appeared besides her.

"Great party, you and Rebekah really outdid yourselves," Hayley appeared next to her. Her dark hair was in a high ponytail and she was dressed in a sexy gold dress. "Katherine, right? I'm Hayley."

"Yeah," she stiffened as she crossed her arms over her chest. "We meet before at Elijah's apartment."

"Oh, yeah you're his friend," Hayley pretended ignorance. "Did you talk to him?"

"Yeah, I did." Katherine shot back, playing along as well. "And you two are friends?"

Hayley shrugged as she took a sip of her drink. "We are, but between us girls I'm trying to make us something more than friends. You understand, right?"

It took every ounce of Katherine not to push Hayley to the ground. "I understand perfectly."

"Well, I'm going to mingle. Again, fabulous party."

Once Hayley left, Katherine closed her eyes to keep another dizzy spell from affecting her.

"Are you all right?"

She opened her eyes and saw Elijah staring at her with a concerned expression. Damn his puppy dog eyes. "I'm fine." She said stiffly. "Excuse me."

Elijah grabbed her wrist. "Is this the way our relationship is going to be Katherine? Us ignoring and dogging each other until the end?"

"It would be," Katherine pulled away. "If we actually had a relationship."

-End of Chapter Thirty-


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